Finland: The Glow of the Midnight Sun

the appetizer:

Due to the harsh climate, traditional Finnish cuisine included many grains and berries. Today contemporary Finns enjoy a wide variety of modern foods typical of Western Europe. Hunting and fishing are popular in Finland, with fish, moose and deer plentiful, but restaurants also serve reindeer.

Finland

The Glow of the Midnight Sun

Finnish liqueurs Have you ever tasted Arctic berries such as the Cloudberry, the Arctic Bramble, the Sea Buckthorn, or the Lingonberry? Their colors literally glow, making them almost too pretty to pick... But the most wonderful thing about them is the taste which the long day has given them. The same untamed taste is also to be found in Finnish cultivated berries, currants, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries. And the reason for their special taste derives from the fact that the strains cultivated here are different and ideally suited to the colder climate.

You can see the spectrum of their colors and sample their wild taste by trying Finnish liqueurs. Finland makes twenty different types.

Grapes do not grow in Finland, but the wide variety of berries that do grow here enables Finns to make forty different types of wine, for domestic consumption and for export. Berry wines are somewhat uncommon in the world, but the method of production does not differ too much from that used when making wine from grapes—it is just a little more difficult.

Finnish sparkling wines, made mainly from the white currant, have established a firm international reputation; their high quality having singled them out for several awards. White currants are also used to make fresh, fruity white wines. The soft taste of Finnish red wines comes from currants and blueberries.

The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, tells that the Iron Age Finns enjoyed frosty, foaming beer. And Finland has the oldest breweries in Scandinavia.

Finland's reputation for good beer has been enhanced by the gold medal won in the strong beers class of world championship competition held in Britain and by the prize won in 1987 in the light beers class.