December 10th
Second Sunday in Advent
Sorry for the delay in posting. The British struggle to cope with a bit of snow and having left at 9am this morning we are still in the car trying to get Home six hours later. Only another 40 miles to go. This journey should have taken two and a half hours!
Before the Second World War, it was only really the churches in Norway that decorated for the Advent season and the colour was purple. After the war, there was a definite shift and decorating one's house for the season became a 'thing'.
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| Arrow points to numerous drying racks, located all over Lofoten, especially on the island of Moskenesøya |
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| Close up of the drying racks around the fishing village of Reine |
Lutefisk is a fish dish made from cod that has been dried and then rehydrated with water and lye, an alkali that prevents the fish from disintegrating when broiled. The only issue with this is that this dish becomes very smelly! I also find it to be very gelatinous, it is not a dish I really would want to eat again, yet my mother will go and eat out every Advent and order this dish. She is a true Norwegian. The drying process of cod is now mostly completed commercially although the large drying racks found in beautiful Lofoten in the Arctic circle are still used to this day to dry the cod that is caught between February and April. Unlike salted cod, cod dried in Lofoten needs no preservatives as the temperature prevents the fish from rotting and the winter sun is enough to allow it to dry naturally still retaining all its nutrients.
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| Traditional Advent dish of lutefisk, mashed potato, mushy peas and bacon, photo from Wikimedia |
But traditions are changing and what was once trendy is now slowly fading out. It has been reported recently in the media in Norway that Norwegians are no longer wanting to dress their house specifically for advent and then switch to Christmas colours later on in the month. So the trend has become to either decorate ones home in white or red. Sales of purple have year on year been in decline. This was unbeknown to me and I too this year have bought white candles for advent, not often I am on trend!
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| The second candle lit for the second Sunday in Advent |
Looking at Pinterest and putting in advent candles, this year it IS predominately white, who knew!
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| A screenshot of the first images that came up with advent candles and they are nearly all white. |
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| This photo comes from the Norwegian company that is equivalent to our Kilner jars, they always style their photos immaculately. I enjoy following them on IG, but see they too are white this year! Norges Glasset |
And I'll steer you to last year's post if I may, we discovered in our house the most gorgeous light cake yet still full of Christmas flavour, brought to us by one of my favourite cooks and author of several great books, Norwegian, Signe Johansen Advent Cake Do give this cake a try, it does, however, contain nuts but it is gluten-free, so it pleases some of you but not all I know! It really is yummy ...
♥ Care to share your advent traditions?
