One of the unique charms of Helsinki is that the sea — waters of the Baltic — is never far away from you. Small wonder then that this iconic city is also known as the Pearl of Baltic. So a predominant item on the table in a Finnish home is the fish… all varieties.
At the Vanha Kauppahalli, the old classic market hall where little old wooden stalls enthrall visitors and shoppers, one of the vendors tries to sell me fish saying, “This has come from the Nile”. Eels, sea bass, herrings, white bait, tiny fish, huge fish, and, of course, the ubiquitous salmon, smoked, fried, pickled…are all here.
The salmon is a huge draw in Finland, and fresher and tastier salmon I haven’t tasted. Ever. In the supermarket, it costs €20-24 a kg – oh yes, Helsinki is one of the most expensive European cities. But it is so tender that each slice of it has to be cut, cleaned and packed with absolute care. Washing it and transferring it to the frying pan is a delicate task which has to be mastered. Three to four minutes on low flame and your salmon is ready to be devoured.
Indian food is of course a delicacy here, as anywhere else in the world, and there is a lot of admiration and curiosity about Indian spices. Hannele Simon sniffs appreciatively my bottle of spices containing cloves, cardamom, cumin, and black pepper. “Of course, now we use red chilly powder and some other spices but my mother would cook only with salt and white pepper. In those days we had no spices whatever. Now of course, in the Indian stores one can buy all your spices.”
Reindeer and bear meat
I ask her about reindeer and bear meat that Finns are supposed to eat. “Oh yes, I've tasted reindeer meat, it is nice and doesn’t have strong game flavour as some people might think. It comes mainly from Lapland.”
But she has never tasted bear meat; but her husband John Simon has. “It's ok, but rather tough,” he says. While it is possible to buy reindeer meat in supermarkets (though it is the most expensive meat available here costing between €35 and €40 a kg), bear meat is not available. But at the Kauppahalli market I did see something called bear salami!
As for vegetables, potato is the most common vegetable here, and is a staple in the Finns’ diet, boiled, roasted, steamed or stewed. But with long and severe winters, Finland has to import most of its vegetables and fruits even though over 75 per cent of the country is forest land.
As Simon drives us through an amazingly picturesque 45-km route to Porvoo, a quaint little town east of Helsinki, I get first-hand experience of the green forest wealth of Finland. Only right now, it is covered under a blanket of snow, with the tall pine, birch, elm and oak trees making the whole scenario picture perfect. When I comment on the frozen lakes that flash by and how pretty they look, Simon smiles and says, “Those are not lakes; they are farmland. With this prolonged winter, farmers are really going to have a tough time this year.”
Farming in Finland, he says, is pretty profitable, but only thanks to the EU subsidies. The main crop is rye – rye bread is very popular and the highest consumed bread in this tiny country with a population just over 5 million.
Nokia and Kone
With such rich forest wealth, pulp and paper constitute a major export item, with metals and technology being other major drivers of the economy. While telecom giant Nokia is struggling to keep its head above water, elevator company Kone, for which Simon has worked for long years, is flourishing.
So with Nokia in trouble, is Kone the largest Finnish company? “I don’t know about the largest, but we are certainly the most profitable,” he beams. It has a facility in Chennai and “Delhi Metro is our largest Indian customer,” he says.
But most Finns want Nokia, a symbol of Finnish pride, to succeed and Simon too unconsciously subscribed to this when he bought the falling Nokia shares. He is still in the red but is confident that someday soon he will make money on this investment!
(Concluded)
>rasheeda.bhagat@theindu.co.in
Read also: >Snowing Helsinki is paradise