One of the most exciting things in other countries is exploring the supermarkets. I love how every country has its own typical dishes to eat. And how every country has its own weird, bizarre things that you wont necessary count to your favorite food, but that are still part of the countries quirk. In Scotland, for instance, we grew quite fond of cheese scones, sticky chocolate pudding, porridge, cranachan, whisky and, to our big surprise, Haggis! The deep-fried mars bars were, on the other hand, something that we confidently added to the quirk-section, being convinced that you’ll probably die one year earlier with every bar you eat.

So far, I haven’t had the chance to get deeper into the Finnish cuisine, but here are some bits and pieces that caught our eyes:

I thought these ones look like wholegrain bread with baked cheese. But inside was some kind of rice pudding, at least that’s what I think. I still suspect, though, that the rice pudding was covered with baked cheese.

(Edit: Ha….this is a Karelian pirogi, and it is indeed stuffed with rice pudding. But not covered with cheese. My taste bulbs must be slightly confused!)

Admittedly, Marabou is not Finnish. Nevertheless, the Finns seem to be equally enthused about salty liquorice as all the other scandinavian countries (so am I, by the way). I didn’t know that Marabou is now producing chocolate with salty liquorice, but I guess that was only a matter of time taken that liquorice ice-cream has already been on the market for years. It tastes a bit odd, but it was gone after two days anyhow.

Looks innocent, this one, right? The moomins are characters from a Finnish children book and apparently a big marketing factor. Let me assure you: it tastes absolutely horrible. Even worse than Irnbru  (sorry, my Scottish friends). At least Irnbru contains caffeine, so there is a justification to drink it….

We haven’t tasted this one yet. I found it between the ham and the salami and generally, I am a bit suspicous regarding any green items in that section. But by now I figured that it is some kind of spinach biscuits (it’s a good thing that you find a Swedish translation on all the Finnish products, otherwise I would often be a bit lost).

So far, so good. Let’s see what else the depths of  the supermarkets contain…