Norway is an odd place. More odd, in fact, than I had ever imagined. Lutefisk, rakfisk, and fish juice are admittedly quite strange but I was not prepared for the announcement that awaited me on our corporate website the other day. The title was simply ‘Smalahove dinner’ but the body of the message said so much more. It turns out that, at Christmas time, things start to get a bit weird in Norway. Specifically, Norwegians begin to feast on delicacies such as lutefisk, pinnekjøtt, and smalahove. The first two I can understand. They come from the parts of the animal carcass that are considered edible. Smalahove, however, is the head of a lamb. It used to be a full-grown sheep but, because of those nasty prions, it has recently been downsized to a lamb’s head. I guess that that’s a good thing if you’re worried about scrapie but it’s not clear to me that heads were meant to be eaten in any case. Apparently Norwegians are of a different mindset though, since they’ll consume about 20 tonnes of the stuff this Christmas season. Even the kids get into it as a bit of research revealed the following newspaper quotes…
Yum, Yum, sheep’s head… Sheep’s head, porridge, vegetable soup, fårikål (lamb with cabbage) and home-baked bread. This is everyday food to the kids at Knærten kindergarten in Bjerkås.
and reading further into the article…
Oskar and Tobias would rather have the tongue, the others will have the eyes, ears and skin. Apart from one who refuses to taste it, the other 43 kids throw themselves over the food. Here there are none that can say that children are ‘wimps’ (note: I’ve chosen to translate ‘kresne’ as ‘wimps’ although I’m sure that it means something else); except for a couple, none of the others have eaten smalahove before.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up here but I do think that this is a bit odd. A 4-year old eating a lamb’s head is a bit out of my comfort zone. Granted, there can’t be much meat on it so it is nearly vegetarian. Maybe I’ll go out and look for a tofu version at the organic food store on the hill.
For more info (warning: some of the pictures may be disturbing)…
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