What do people eat in Norway?
Norwegians eat bread twice a day, at breakfast and in a packed lunch called matpakke, and have a hot dinner, middag, around 16:00 to 17:00. Fish, potatoes, brunost and, on Fridays, tacos are everyday food.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
Breakfast is open sandwiches on dark wholegrain bread. The toppings, called pålegg, are brunost (sweet brown cheese) cut thin with a cheese slicer, jarlsberg, liver paté, boiled egg or caviar spread from a tube. Many drink a glass of milk or a coffee with it.
Lunch
Lunch is the matpakke, a few slices of bread with pålegg wrapped in paper and brought from home. It is eaten early, often at 11:00 to 11:30, in a short break at work or school. The habit goes back to the Oslo breakfast, a free school meal from the 1930s.
Dinner
Middag, the one hot meal, comes early, around 16:00 to 17:00. Think kjøttkaker, meat cakes in brown gravy with potatoes and mashed peas, fish such as salmon or cod with boiled potatoes, or fiskeboller. On Fridays many families have tacos, and about 80 percent of Norwegians eat Tex Mex at least once a month.
Starters
Weekday meals rarely have a starter. At parties and in summer there is spekemat, cured ham and sausage, with flatbread and sour cream, or smoked salmon. At Christmas the main dish takes over: pinnekjøtt (salted lamb ribs steamed over birch sticks), ribbe pork belly, or lutefisk with bacon and peas.
Desserts
Waffles are the national treat, heart shaped and eaten with brunost or jam and sour cream, about 310 kcal a plate. Bløtkake, a cream layer cake with berries, is made for birthdays and 17 May. At Christmas there is riskrem, rice pudding with cream and red berry sauce.
Drinks
Coffee is drunk black, filter style, all day long, and Norway is among the biggest coffee drinkers per person. Children and many adults drink milk with meals. Wine and spirits are sold at Vinmonopolet, the state shop, and beer in supermarkets only until 20:00 on weekdays. Akevitt, a caraway spirit, goes with Christmas food.
Street food
The street snack is pølse, a hot dog from a petrol station or kiosk, often wrapped in lompe, a soft potato flatbread, about 290 kcal. Norwegians eat around 120 sausages per person a year. Waffles are sold at cafes, on ferries and at ski cabins.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Brunost is made from boiled whey and tastes of caramel, yet it goes on bread at breakfast. Tacos are so common they are called the unofficial national dish, while the official one, fårikål (mutton and cabbage, about 600 kcal a plate), has its own day on the last Thursday of September. At Easter Norwegians eat around 25 million Kvikk Lunsj bars.