Christmas markets Scandi style

December 3rd 2018

Bunad ~ traditional Norwegian national costume,
each county has its own designated dress,
you can pinpoint where people come from.

Christmas markets are not a new thing but in recent years their popularity has soared.  It was once if you wanted to experience such a thing you had to fly to the continent for a jolly and indeed such trips are still popular but now we have our very own in most towns and cities; some are incredible.  But for me the Scandinavian market, although not the biggest nor the best to be found is still my very favourite of them all.

On a small section of the road nestled between the Norwegian and  Finnish church in Rotherhithe, South London on the penultimate weekend in November every year you will hear the singalong voices of joyous Scandinavians.  An important market for those unable to travel back to their homeland for Christmas, where they can pick up food delicacies not found in an  English superstore.  Where wearing a National costume is not out of place and where copious amounts of black coffee, open sandwiches, pølse (hot dogs) and waffles are consumed.

Scandinavian market London

A market is a place where friends who may not have seen each other for sometime meet up and goodies are bought.  I meet with my mother's Norwegian 'Klub' friend and daughter this year who I had not seen in over 15years as well as meeting my aunt and a dear dear friend.  Whilst waiting for them to arrive I perched on a cold bench outside the Norwegian Seaman church and began to knit.

Public knitting in London

Not looking up and concentrating on knitting I had not noticed two women stop at the side of the park, one who whispered to the other ,  'She must be Norwegian, look she's knitting,' to the other who was squinting at her phone trying to text me to say they had arrived, when looking up, the two of them together thought, is that Selma knitting over there in the park?  Firstly I needed to remind them that knitting has had a resurgence in the past few years and the Scandinavians are not the only ones who knit and secondly, I secretly wondered if their glasses prescription may need upping a bit! And yes, they took a photo of me!

Knitting outside the Norwegian
Seaman Church, London

Small details on the Norwegian church

A native Norwegian in her bunad and s
selling lots of 'nisse' like Christmas decorations

In Norway, we decorate anything that stays still long enough for Christmas

The Danes were there too

As were the Finnish, but not the Swedes, their church is a
short tube ride away, also on the same weekend
but I never seem to manage to make it there, one day!

A Finn perusing the wares in the Norwegian church

Just loved the clever name

The brewery between the fjords
and mountains in beautiful Flåm

And for those of you interested there was the new microbrewery from Norway selling their beer too, lovely website, do go and have a look.  Microbrewing in Norway

Toilet humour

As always before a long journey home I like to make use of the facilities, this time in the Finnish church and had to smile at seeing this framed picture next to the toilet.

~ On the journey home I reflected on the richness of my heritage and was not for the first time grateful laden down with kitchen goodies ready to make for the coming festive season...

♥  Sending you warm wishes wherever you are  ♥

Celebrations Norwegian style

Traditional celebration cake for Constitutional Day
in Norway today

17 mai ~ 17th May



Hip hip hurrah for i dag er det 17 mai!

Today is Norwegian Constitutional Day, the day Norway became independent and began with their own royal family in 1814.

It's a national holiday and parades through out each town and village across the whole country takes place today.  From early morning brass bands march and celebrational breakfasts are eaten.  Norwegians party all day long with friends and family.

Gathering all the decorations the night before is
somewhat of a late night tradition in our household

  
One of the 'must' have on the food list is the celebration cake known as kransekake, I have written about it several times before but it is so special, I thought you would not mind indulging me again this year.

Kransekake
You will need:
500g almonds with skin on , you can bought ready ground
500g icing sugar
3-4 egg whites
butter for melting
semolina or fine breadcrumbs
icing sugar for decoration

Grind the almonds

Mix with the icing sugar and add egg whites
one at a time, do not make the
dough overly sticky, be careful

It should be a consistency between
crumbly and slightly sticky

Melt butter and brush over rings, add
semolina or breadcrumbs, this helps
 to avoid dough sticking to the rings

Pipe or hand roll (to about a finger width)
mixture to fill the rings

Bake in a preheated oven for 10-12 minutes
at 180 degrees Celsius

Gently remove from rings, this can be quite
precarious and build up into a tower stack

You can either pipe icing sugar on individual rings
before completing the stack or you can drizzle
icing sugar over the tower once formed

Decorating the tower really brings it alive

Decorate with celebratory paraphernalia

I must confess to not creating the perfect kransekake this year, I was too impatient this morning, having meant to make it last night but was not feeling well.  I awoke early this morning to make it.  Taking it out of the oven too early and stacking it before it had cooled properly it began to collapse with the weight of the top rings once I had turned my back on it.  So how to save the day... I simply removed the lower rings, iced them as normal and just laid them around the edge of the now much shorter kransekake.  Do you think anyone will notice?

All ready to party

After having baked the kransekake, I tuned in on live streaming and watched a little of the children's parade in Oslo and saw the royal family waving from their palace balcony, I may not be in Norway but I can still join, the wonders of the internet.

Norwegian royal family watching the parades in Oslo today

Each area of Norway has it's own traditional dress and you can place people by the costume they wear, mine comes from Vest Telemark, where I hail from, I love it and am very proud of it.  It is hand embroidered and was made to measure for me in 1988.  When bought for a young girl it is made with excess material to accommodate the ever changing shape of a woman... (thank goodness)



The hemline of the dress is 3 meters, think of all
that embroidery, it took 6 months to make

 

The accompanying purse which hangs from the hand woven belt
 has the date of make embroidered on it.  Here you also
 see some of the silver jewellery that belongs to such an outfit.

 

 

♥   Gratulerer med dagen til dere alle   ♥