Surftrail: Mussels. Sunday, 25 August 2002

surftrail

Mussels

Curiously, Norwegian cooking keeps coming up in hypermedia blogs these days. I guess it is because everything is deeply intertwingled. Mark reported his mouth watering after reading Torill's description of her own Norwegian west coast cuisine. Adrian does not seem equally seduced, going on about tasteless dried, then soaked cod (oy, mate, go to Spain and Portugal and order some bacalhau!), and carrying a photo of a typically disgusting cafeteria dinner on his front page.

Most Norwegians (around Oslo, anyway, and that's where most of us live) don't think much of Norwegian cooking. That means, they rarely ever think about it, and when they do, they're not too proud. That's because the traditions got lost during the last half century. All the while cooking is in vogue as never before. We never before had so many TV cooking shows, recipe books, fancy ingredients, good restaurants or celebrity chefs. Among my friends, the men are always doing the cooking, at least in weekends, and with sharp, expensive knives, fresh ingredients, shallots, not onions, and wine in the sauce thank you very much. Gino Valente is one of these celebrity chefs.He came here from Italy more than 30 years ago. He says bluntly that Norwegian cooking was much better, and much more interesting in the 1960ies.

The vikings grew onions, garlic, and oregano. And they stole beatiful girls from Southern Europe and kept them as "wives" -- sex slaves and cooks. Hey, they may have eaten pizza!

So I guess I'm proud of our traditions (culinary, not the foreign policy part) after all, but what never fails to puzzle me is how Norwegians have failed to make use of many of Nature's gifts. Lots of delicate fish was thrown away because it didn't look (or behave) nicely. Mackerel, the very best of summer, was thrown back into the sea with a curse in Trondheim and further north. Wolffish, a true delicacy looked to scary. Not to mention anglerfish, (Seeteufel -- "Sea Devil" in German), which scared the wits out of fishermen brave enough to sail the angry North Sea.

A famous Norwegian author reminisces from childhood: "we were poor, but not so poor we had to eat lobster".

And mussels. They're everywhere along the coast. And people who had seen the world told in horror that the French and Dutch actually ate them.

I love standing to my hips in the warm sea at our summer house, tearing big, beautiful shiny blue blåskjell up into the air, cleaning them at the beach with a cold beer (or three, it does take a while), and eating them by sunset. Some goes into the deep freeze as mussel soup, which can be the base for many variations.

So we have learned the French way, forgotten our own. When I run in the woods behind our house, I have to dance around the path to avoid crushing the chanterelles that grows in the middle of it. No one picks them exept me. In the rest of Europe, people are crazy about mushrooms. In Norway, only a few enthusiasts and East European immigrants pick them. Again, the vikings knew better -- but they preferred the fun mushrooms, I'm told.

Oh, the mussel recipe?

I clean the mussels, and throw away the open ones. Then I sauté chopped vegetables in olive oil (garlic, shallots, carrots, fennel, celery -- what's in my fridge) until tender. Adding some chili is a fun variant. Add a glass of white wine, and put the mussels in. Put the lid on, and steam slowly for some minutes, until they're open, and as tender (hard) as my guests prefer them (some think slimy is cool, others prefer them more al dente).

Serve as is with chopped parsley and tomatoes, perhaps. Or you could drain the stock from the mussels, return it to the pot and reduce it to half, maybe add some cream and saffron.

All you really need, is a large pot with a lid. A little sea water, close the lid, and steam the mussels on a seaside fire. Eat, drink beer, watch the sunset.