“What food that surprises people” depends
completely upon a) who eat the food and b) “people”. E.g. should items like “spaghetti”, “peanut butter”; “pretzels”, “”avocado” and “mayo”really surpriced my grandfather, most also my father. (As far as I know, my father has never tasted peanut butter, pretzels or avocado, barely also maoynnaise and spaghetti (though regularly maccaroni”), tasted pizza once and never been found inside a MacDonald’s.)
Ten items our family/I eat regularly that I suppose might surprice some from US and UK:
https://dbstatic.no/67829914.jpg?imageId=67829914&width=760&height=432 . Nearly every breakfast and/or supper. The left-hand cheese for me, please, our twins (15) prefer the right-hand cheese, but like both. Of course they do: More than 1/2 million lunched - daily - are packed by Norwegian primary/secondary school students and more than 50 % of these contain at least one sandwich with one of those brown cheeses (Norvegia - Gouda-like - chese also much used, but this cheese even more.) Norwegians are never spoiled for choices when about the brown cheeses, a small/medium-sized Norwegian grocery shop will have a selection about as
https://image.klikk.no/3607143.jpg?...=0&heightx=0&heighty=0&width=1920&height=1080, a large also the more special/local ones. The cheeese seen “north” on the pickutre is the most sold cheese in Norway and is availble in every grocery shop in blocks of 0.5 kg/1.1. lbs and 1 kg/2.2.lbs, some rather few aslo 2 kgs/4.4 lbs.
https://coop.no/globalassets/coop-m...ravare/smorbrod-med-gammelost.jpg?preset=Full This cheese/spread in litteraly named “Old Cheese” and was known even of the Vikings. Can be stored for weeks, months and years without chilling and is very low-fat. Taste? Well, a foreigner described it to me as “two male cats arguing abolutone female cat - into his mouth”. The chesse is tasty (particularly when stored) and thus most popular amoung adults, but also some childs love it. No daily cheese for me, but a sanwich twice a week or some more. (My father eats more, but he consider - like quite a few in his generation - the yellow cheeses to be “sunday cheeces”.) Our twins eat is a well today, but were not really lovers of that cheese before they got 11-12 years old and barely tasted it before they was 2/3 of that age. (Please also notice the bread. THis is “light” Norrwegian bread, only about 75 % whole-grain. Loaf is next to not sellable in Norway, BREAD are to be 75-100 % whole-grain.) A real nice wariety is
https://www.appetitt.no/uploads/library/matmerk-139-1_c.jpg (whole-grain Norwegian bread, “old cheese”, slices of extra salted (4-5 %) home-made butter from really sour cream and a no-/next-to-no-sugar-added syrup made of the berries known as krekling i Norway and blackberries in Alaska, a smaller black step-sister of crowberries (Norwegian cloudberrys, sourer and stronger into taste than the latter) + some FINEly choppet pine needles and/or other carefully selected herbs from the Norwegian nature. The blackberries are named “empetrum nigrum” in Latine, and they can be found everywhere in Southern Norway (except in shops....), but the berries are small (3-5 millimeters or 1/8-1/5” ) and growing close to earht, making the harvesting to be some time-and back-consuming) .
https://www.ikelandgard.no/sites/default/files/geitepolse.jpg. Sausage/salami made eigher from goat (my preference) or goat (4 parts)//reindeer (1 part) meet, marinated for one month in sea salt, smoked and dried. A slice or two is nice on sandwiches togher with a slice of mature (9-12 month old) Gouda /Edamer cheese or scramled eggs. However, the sausage/salami should be stored a suitable place - e.g your chimey - for 3/4 - 1 year before use.
https://www.frahavet.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1-7.jpg - cods or haddocks salted an then dried onto cliffis during the summer days (in and out, no rain must hit the fish) until it is hard as dried wood and can be stored for years. May be eaten THINLY sliced as snack, or “washed” in a creek for some hours before sliced to pieces, boiled and served with milk sauce (sauce Bechamel with triple doce nutmeg and may be som nearly raw onion rings) + boiled potatoes and carrots Our familiy of four + my parents prepare at least 50 kgs/110 lbs (dried) fish a year, so found onto the dinner table nearly every week.
https://camillashjemmelagetmat.file...skjermbilde-2017-08-04-kl-00-34-20.png?w=1000. The fish is herring, heavy salted, stored for some monts, washed some minutes in water, then a minute in skimmed milk (loved by our cat later), but not boilded. The bread is very thin, made by barley and/or rye and fried in an iron-cast pan , straight upon an iron-cast cooking plate or upon
https://dm9fd9qvy1kqy.cloudfront.ne...df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/t/st550.jpg (preferably totally flat). The white is sour cream 38 %. Anything execpt potatoes to be served coled (potoes may also be served cold), thus perfect dish for hot summer days.
https://beritnordstrand.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Screenshot-2013-11-11-01.15.12.png. Litteraly named “mutton-in-cabbage”.Typically autumn food the season is officialy declared opened last Thursday in September. Balloted Norways natial dish, one of the easiest dishises to make, but requires a) bone-in fat breast meat from sheep (preferable old ones), not lamb, b) loads of whole black pepper (no less than one tablespoon pr 0.5 kg/1.1 lbs of meat) and c) decent of time for simmering. (It is a running joke in Norway that mutton-in-cabbage always tast best at day thre, then beeing duly reheated tvice and finally perfect simmered.) Calculate absolutely no less than six hours, eight-nine is ideal and 12-14 does not damage the dish at all when water is added regularly (fried mutton-in-cabbage isn’t nice...) Locally we also use (atlantic) pollock-in-cabbage, made the same way, but simmered enough after one hour cabagge pre-simmering + onre hour with pollock.
https://i0.wp.com/nylonn.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2012-03-30-Finka.jpg. Common meat sauce eaten with potaoes (boild fresh and/or sliched leftours, our twins have informed me that tagliatelle pasta also is nice, but personally I prefer potates) and pickled beetroot slices. How to make? Grind equal quantities of liver/kidnes/hearts/fat (1:1:1:1) from mutton or pork (no mix) twice. Combine four parts of meat mix, two parts of boilded barley grains and one part of grated sour apples, grind again, add onion/salt/pepper to taste and add (when mix are to be used, preferable within 15-20 days when stored in a fridge) a minimum of waterr + (modern) a table spoon or tho of peeled and mashed (over)ripe omatoes. (Edit: Just received a request from our teens for this dish for dinner tomorrow.. As we have some in the fridge that should be fine.)
https://www.p8pop.no/mmo/images/2016/5/356c6a17-6442-4fa2-87b2-2c5f93d1186a.jpg?w=1200. Oven-baked meat of whale with potato-/red onion-/leek-/sour apple salad and lemon-tasted standard-salted (2,5 %) butter. Du I need to say more than really delicius.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Svið.jpg. The white is mashed potatoes (boiled potats also useable), the yellow mashed/stewed rutabaga. Typically 1-3 dinners a year during the autumn. Typically western Norway, considerably fewer enjoy this this in the northern and (especially) eastern part of Norway.
And finally:
https://www.retailhousevarejo.no/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/01-Startbilde-Møllers-Tran-.jpg (Möller is a last name, the four letter-word below meas “cod liver oil”.) One table spoon a day in every month from SepembeR to ApRil is a requirement for being a trure Norwegian! Expect to find that bottle proudly present at even a hotel’s breakfast buffet, as this is ANY breakfast’s first item, even before the first sip of tea/coffe/milk/water.
Dont’think much of this food stuff is to be found in an average US/UK diet plan...
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