Report on Finnish culture: typical food and meals

One of the aspects that intrigued us from the start is the local cuisine. We decided to enjoy it as much as possible and to try to taste as many specialities as possible.

Our first encounter with Finnish food was in the Lidl in Seinäjoki, the city where we were staying for 3 months. As usual in Lidls, there is a section with baked goods. These are typical to each country. That is when we decided to have our first introduction to Finnish food.

During this trip to the grocery store we also started to notice some minor differences with the selection of foods that we’re used to in France. There is less fish and unprocessed meat. On the other hand, there are a lot more sausages. The number of different brands, kinds, varieties and sizes is impressive. Even dogs have their aisles of sausages.

Throughout our stay we discovered more and more typical food, and slowly adapted to include some of these specialities into our diet. We often bought bags of riisipiirakka, which is a sort of rice paste on whole wheat dough. I replaced the yoghourts I ate as snacks with rahka. This is a sort of denser yogurt with taste somewhere between yogurt, sour cream and cottage cheese.

Whenever we had an occasion to try Finnish food, we jumped on it. Since we travelled to different parts of the country we had many opportunities to try local cuisine. For example, during our visit of Helsinki, we went to an all you can eat buffet which served traditional Finnish dishes. We got to enjoy reindeer meat, herring, a variety of salads, baked potatoes and many other vegetables.

In Lapland we also got to a similar restaurant.

From this experience we gathered that Finnish food had clear Slavic roots and influences, while taking advantage of local ingredients. The food is very rich and nutritious. Still it was balanced, and in the end quite necessary when you must live in extremely cold weather for months each year.

Finns also really enjoy milk and various liquorice-based products.

Finally, the last part we have to cover is fast-foods. Most of the popular fast-food chains can be found. We never went to a McDonalds ourselves, but our friends told us it is much greasier, and the selection is a little different. Burger King was very similar to its French counterpart, and so was Subway. What is interesting is that a Finnish chain of fast-food restaurants, called Hesburger, is much more popular and widespread than its US competitors. This is obviously subjective, but I preferred it quite a bit to the ones I am used to in France.

In summary, while historically influenced by its neighbours, and more recently by globalization, Finnish cuisine adapted to its environment and constraints. This led it to develop a very clear and unique character. It is very rich by necessity, but it stays extremely balanced in general.