Imports

Whenever we travel home from Norway, I always bring back our favorite Norwegian foods like blueberry flavored Jello and Vanilla Sauce – things we can’t get in America.  Vanilla Sauce is Norway’s most beloved dessert topping that tastes like the vanilla custard inside a donut, only better.  Norwegians are always shocked when they hear we don’t have that stuff in every store in America.  They are under the impression that America has everything.  I think they are delighted to realize they have something so wonderful all to themselves.

We’ve also brought home dried fish a few times.  Usually it’s for my husband, but this year it was for our neighbor whose ancestors hail from Iceland.  The only problem with bringing that stuff home is that it stinks up the luggage so badly that it takes forever to air out.  I’m happy this year it all went to our neighbor just so we could get that smell out of our house.

My husband broke a tooth on dried fish one year when we were in Norway.  It’s hard as a rock and is meant to be hammered before gnawing on it, but he couldn’t wait. He chomped down hard and that’s all it took.  When he went to the dentist she told him she gets at least one patient a week that either breaks a tooth or knocks one out completely from chewing on dried fish.  If it were sold in America, I’m sure they’d require warning labels.

Likewise, when we travel to Norway, we have more than a suitcase full of foods from America that we can’t get there, as even my most basic recipes include items not available in Norway.  Chocolate chip cookies, for example, are impossible to make without importing vanilla, brown sugar and chocolate chips – none of which are found in stores anywhere in our part of the country.  When I mention this fact to Norwegians they get very defensive and tell me how they do too have vanilla (but it’s powdered, not liquid) and brown sugar, but it’s more like raw sugar than the soft, squishy variety we have in America, so it doesn’t work the same in recipes. They fail to comprehend the differences.

I’m certain someone could make a lot of money if they started importing chocolate chips to Norway.  Every time I’ve made chocolate chip cookies, there is non-stop chatter about how good they are and everyone wants the recipe. Then I have to tell them the sad news that it’s just not possible without imported ingredients. 

I ran out of chips one year and tried to make them by chipping away at chunks of Norwegian chocolate, but it took way too much time, made a huge mess, and had disastrous results with consistency in the size of the chips.  But at least no one broke a tooth on them and they did leave a rather pleasant smell in the kitchen.