Cuisine of Norway

Norwegian cuisine in its traditional form is based largely on the raw materials readily available in Norway and its mountains, wilderness and coast. It differs in many respects from its continental counterparts with a stronger focus on game and fish. Many of the traditional dishes are results of using conserved materials, with respect to the long winters.

Modern Norwegian cuisine, although still strongly influenced by its traditional background, now bears Globalization: pastas, pizzas, tacos, and the like are as common as meatballs and cod as staple foods, and urban restaurants sport the same selection one would expect to find in any western European city.

Most Norwegians eat three or four regular meals a day, usually consisting of a cold breakfast with coffee, a cold (usually packed) lunch at work and a hot dinner at home with the family. Depending on the timing of family dinner (and personal habit), some may add a cold meal in the late evening, typically a simple sandwich.

The basic Norwegian breakfast consists of milk or fruit juice, coffee (or more rarely tea), and open sandwiches with meat cuts, spreads, cheese or jam. Cereals such as corn flakes, muesli and oatmeal are also popular, particularly with children, as is yogurt.

Norwegians usually eat dinner around 4-5 PM. This is the most important meal of the day and typically includes carbohydrate-rich foods such as potatoes and protein-rich foods such as meat or fish.

Norwegians usually eat supper (kveldsmat) around 7-8 PM. This may be an open sandwich.

Preserved meat and sausages come in a large variety of regional variations, and are usually accompanied by sour cream dishes and flat bread or wheat/potato wraps. Particularly sought after delicacies include the fenalår, a slow-cured lamb's leg, and morr, usually a smoked cured sausage, though the exact definition may vary regionally.

Lamb's meat and mutton is very popular in autumn, mainly used in fårikål (mutton stew with cabbage). Pinnekjøtt, cured and sometimes smoked mutton ribs that are steamed for several hours (traditionally on a bed of birch sticks, hence the name, meaning "stick meat"), is traditionally served as Christmas dinner in the western parts of Norway. Another Western specialty is smalahove, a salted, or salted and smoked, lamb's head.

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Wikipedia