vera kung

Empty stockfish racks waiting to be loaded.

I don’t know much about Scandinavian cuisine, let alone Norwegian specialties. When I think of Norwegian food, the first thing that comes to mind is gravlax… which isn’t even specifically Norwegian. But when we arrived at the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway, we stumbled on a very Norwegian product — stockfish.

Stockfish (tørrfisk in Norwegian) is air-dried fish, most often cod. It can be eaten as a snack (being fish with nothing else added, it’s very high in protein and low in fat), and it can also be reconstituted to make lutefisk (which I now regret not trying while I was in Norway).

Freshly gutted and cleaned fish are hung out to dry from about February to May when it’s cold enough to stop bacteria and mould growing, but warm enough that there’s little frost to damage the flesh of the fish. After it’s dried, it can be kept for years without spoiling.

Wandering around the islands, we saw some huge racks of fish — at some of the sites, there must’ve been tens of thousands of fish. Apparently stockfish is one of the most sustainable and profitable exports of Norway, and the Lofoten Islands, with its cold and stable climate, have the best conditions for producing stockfish.^*

Racks full of fish drying in Svolvær. In case you were wondering, it didn't smell bad.

Fish on a different kind of rack in Henningsvær.

But it’s not just exported — the locals eat it too. In front of many houses, we saw small batches of fish hung out to dry on make-shift racks. On one of our walks, we saw a couple of guys taken a break from fixing their car to snack on a fish, pulling pieces out from the still-fully-skinned fish baton.

Fish hanging to dry under the balcony. Sometimes we even saw them hanging outside apartment windows!

For us tourists, there are sample packs at the supermarket. At 26 Norwegian Krone (almost £3) for a 30 gram pack, I doubt the locals buy much of it, given they can probably catch and dry their own fish for free. We bought a couple of packs to try — it tastes similar to the dried squid I sometimes buy from Chinese stores, maybe slightly milder (though I hear the supermarket versions are bland compared to the homemade ones). Not bad for a healthy snack.

Stockfish snack pack. According to the back of the pack, it's 83% protein, 10% water, 4% minerals, 2% salt, and 1% fat.

^{* According to the Visit Norway website.}

I realised the other day that I’m now doing the thing that I’ve wanted to do since I was about 18. Since the time I started uni, I’ve bought at least three editions of Lonely Planet’s Europe on a Shoestring… and now I’m here.

We’ve done some trips from our London base of course, but this is The Big Trip I’d been looking forward to for so many years. We’re in Norway for a week, then will be off to Morocco and other places in Europe (to be decided) for the next couple of months.

It’s hard to believe I’m finally here. When I get home I’ll need to find something new to dream about.

Kabelvåg, one of the oldest towns in north Norway, where we had a picnic lunch on a jetty. There must be more mountains than people in the Lofoten Islands.

This time last month, JF and I were at the National Gallery in Prague. It was a surprisingly big collection and we spent most of the day wandering through it.

I can’t say I know much about art, and after a while it all starts looking the same to me. Religious allegory here, impressionist countryside over there… but then one painting caught my eye, and I laughed out loud when I read its title:

Reader of Dostoyevsky by Emil Filla (picture taken from a postcard we got at the gallery).

Finally, art that I can relate to.

This time last month, JF and I were at the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection in Berlin to look at some surreal art. Here are two that I liked:

La Poupée by Hans Bellmer (picture taken from a postcard we got at the gallery).

I thought it was creepy how human-like the expression of this mannequin was, even though its overall form was not. Apparently Bellmer’s dolls were partly inspired by my favourite opera, Tales of Hoffman.

Bis zu seinem Grossvater by Francisco Goya (picture taken from a postcard we got at the gallery).

I liked this one because it’s a donkey. And it’s showing you its family album.

Stop scribbling indecipherable cooking notes on random, unordered pages of a notebook (don’t be fooled by the tabs — they mean nothing). At least file them away so you can find them when you want them later. We can work on comprehensibility and legibility next year.