5-Day Finland
Itinerary

Lohikeitto

Finland's definitive winter soup — salmon, potato and leek simmered in fish stock with cream and dill until the salmon is just cooked and the broth is rich and coral-pink; the cream rounds out the natural sweetness of Baltic salmon; served with dark rye bread; the antidote to a Finnish winter that actually works.

Poronkäristys (Reindeer Stew)

Lapland's most essential dish — thinly sliced reindeer meat sautéed in butter with onion until caramelised, simmered in its own juices with a splash of beer, and served with mashed potato, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber; a meal eaten by Sámi herders for centuries; the meat is lean, gamey and clean-flavoured unlike any other.

Karjalanpiirakka

Finland's most iconic pastry — a thin rye crust (the recipe unchanged since the Karelian region was lost to the Soviet Union in 1944) crimped around a filling of rice or mashed potato porridge; spread while warm with munavoi (egg butter) and eaten as breakfast or a snack; a Finnish national symbol and UNESCO Intangible Heritage candidate.

Kalakukko

A Savonian time capsule — a sealed loaf of rye bread baked with whole small fish (vendace or perch) and salted pork inside; the bread is baked for eight hours until the fish bones dissolve entirely and the bread absorbs the fish oils; a self-contained meal that kept Finnish foresters fed for days; still sold in Kuopio's market square.

Salmiakki

Finland's most exported flavour and its most misunderstood — salty liquorice intensified with ammonium chloride to a mineral-harsh, saline bitterness that Finns consume daily in every conceivable form: pastilles, liqueur, ice cream, chocolate; the acquired taste that separates every Finnish person from every foreigner in one bite.