A bit more about me and my interests that you do not find in the 101.
So this will be about wine, cheese, coffee, digestifs and the occasional good Cuban cigar (I don’t smoke, though), good recipes (I do eat), weird recipes, well not to me, but perhaps to you.
What do I eat for Christmas?
Salted, dried/cured and steamed lamb ribs. Never tried it? You should. It is delicious. Eat it with potatoes and mashed rutabaga made with some of the fat from the steaming of the lamb ribs. A good dark beer and Norwegian aqua vita in moderation – that’s the digestif.
Usually I eat it once, on Christmas Eve. You can of course buy the ribs ready, you need to keep them in water for a day or two. I for one make them myself. In salt for a few days. Then hang them up for drying a couple of months or so. They do not need to be very dry. This is a recipe from the west coast of Norway, and it is usually very mild and wet there, so no ribs get dry, just cured.
What to eat for summer? I just love light food with white or rose wine. Having said that I don’t mind a heavy steak from the grill either. Not too much to go with it, a little mustard and a good bottle of red wine. But there is something else that is typically summer food for me. Cured salted herring.
Even though the Norwegians fish most of the herring around here we’re not so good at preparing it anymore, at least not in restaurants where you hardly get it. So if you want to try it, do so in Denmark or Sweden, they’re really masters at it. Summer lunch at one of the small restaurants at Gammel Strand in Copenhagen; herring platter, a beer and of course a snaps. It’s heaven on earth. Just beside a small flee market where they specialize (it looks like they do anyway) in old 78 vinyl records.
So here we go at the terrace of our cabin with a magnificent view of the Drammen and Oslo fjords:
Some fillets of herring Matjessild (Matjes herring – I think that’s originally Dutch) a good beer, some light aqua vita, boiled potatoes, sliced cured beet roots, sliced raw onions, and sour cream. You can of course also have some rye bread to go with it (typically Danish). Can you imagine??? Come join us.
When it comes to wine I’m a typical old world guy. France, Italy and some Spanish for red. Mostly France, Italy, Germany and Austria for white. Having lived in the US for a while I am well acquainted with American wine and at times miss both Cakebread, Bonny Doon and Au Bon Climat. I enjoy reading their newsletters. But I must admit California wines are a bit on the heavy side for me. On the other hand I always drink local wine. So in the US I drink US wines, that’s as local as it gets, no Floridian wines, No.
I love Spanish cured ham. No one can make cured, dried ham like the Spanish. You can get them in a variety of qualities from €20 to more than €1000 per kilo. From simple Serrano, which means mountain ham, to Jamon Iberico aka Pata Negra from black pigs, cerdo negro, fed on acorns and that alone. You can taste it, the gets a wonderfully nutty flair. Pair it with a full bodied Spanish red wine from the Rioja or the Ribera del Duero and it feels like heaven. Or even a crisp fino sherry well chilled. Have it for lunch in one of the numerous lunch bars – tapas bars that you’ll find all over Spain.
I once brought a whole ham with me from Spain. I managed to get it into the suitcase placing it diagonally together with clothes and other stuff. Well home we hang it in the ceiling in our kitchen for everybody to cut a slice if they so desired. Recommended.
And Cheese? Munster. All time high. But not the industrial ones. The “fermier” – farm made. With a little bit of cumin and a bottle of Gewürztraminer. If you can’t stand the smell of cheese, this is not for you.
Then it’s Manchego, the Spanish cheese from the La Mancha area – where Don Quixote was riding around fighting the wind mills, probably chewing Queso Manchego as well. It’s made from unpasteurized sheep’s milk, by the way, from the Manchega breed. What I would characterize as a hard cheese, and one of not a lot of cheeses that goes very well along with red wine. Mature Rioja or Ribera Del Duero. What about Parmagiano Reggiano? Definitely hard. I love this cheese from Emilia-Romagna in Italy, but having to chose between the two, I usually prefer Manchego. Unrivaled though granulated on your pasta dish and in a Risotto. Parnagiano-Reggiano is also a good match with red wine. At least it was one morning up in Veneto, served with a good bottle of Amarone – no less. That was at Villa Monteleone in Gargagnago, by the way, so now you know where to go. They’ve got rooms as well.
Chevre, from the Loire region of France. White goat cheese if you’re not a specialist. A Chevre on your terrace with a bottle of white Sancerre while the sun sets, and it’s heaven on earth. If you’re not into mould, try the ones covered with ash, that’s clean enough.
Brie, Brie de Meaux. Cow’s milk. Unpasteurized, so stay off if you’re pregnant. Intense taste i think would be a good description.
What about the Jarlsberg? It’s Norwegian. It’s OK, but it’s an industrially made cheese. It’s not from a designated area, or special cows; yeah, you’re right: it’s made of Cows milk. Pasteurized even. In Norway we eat Jarlsberg on slices of bread, for lunch, (and breakfast and supper).
And brown goat cheese. Ski Queen you mean? Sure. It’s not a cheese by definition in my opinion. Another put-on- your-bread-for-lunch cheese that Norwegians are so fond of. It’s a curiosity.
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