Looks awful...Tastes pretty good :)

In the US, Easter marks the arrival of the revered delicacy; the marshmallow peep. Peeps come in a dazzling array of springtime colours and provide entertainment for chemistry students all year long in addition to fabulous Easter peep deserts. Easter in Finland, however, brings along with it a dish called mämmi [ said like mammy ] which looks so foul upon first seeing it that you would not think it edible except by force or duress. I did agree to try it and, once I got over how it looked, found it quite delicious. Virtual Finland has a little history about the traditional dish:

"The oldest and no doubt the most unusual traditional Finnish dish is mämmi, a dark brown porridge made of water and sweetened rye malt. It is baked in a slow oven in cardboard boxes made to look like birchbark baskets. Nowadays mämmi is a dessert served with cream and sugar, but originally it used to be a Lenten provision, eaten cold as such or spread on top of a slice of bread.

For a long time, Easter mämmi remained a special delicacy of southwestern Finns, until early this century the art of making mämmi spread nationwide, thanks to rural homemaking schools, agricultural societies and cookery books. Finland's independence in 1917 inspired a vigorous search for typically Finnish symbols. Mämmi, an age-old, genuine Finnish folk dish, was accepted as one. Nowadays it is a seasonal product for the bakeries. Rows of boxes resembling birchbark baskets and filled with mämmi appear in the food stores almost as soon as Christmas is over."

It's served with cream but I've heard that it's also good with ice cream. I wonder if it would work with peeps as a new Ameri-Fenno delicacy :) For anyone brave enough to try making it yourself at home, a recipe below found on the internet but appears to be very close to the recipe in Finnish.

Mämmi

• 6 quarts water
• 1 lb. malt
• 3 lbs. rye flour
• molasses to taste
• 1-2 tsp. salt
• 4 Tbsp. chopped orange rind

Mix the malt and flour. In a large cooking pan (with a heavy bottom if available), heat about 2 quarts of the water and add enough of the flour/malt mix to form a thin mixture (like velli). Sprinkle with a layer of malt and flour. Cover the pan and place in a warm place to sweeten, about one hour.

Now mix the sprinkled flour and malt into the mixture. Add more hot water and again a layer of flour and malt. Leave to sweeten. Repeat as often as needed to include all remaining water, flour and malt. With the last addition, season the mämmi to taste with molasses and orange rind.

Cook for about 10 mins., stirring constantly. Whip till cooled. Place in low pans (ah, to have those birch bark mämmituokkoset available). Do not fill too full, because mämmi will rise in the oven. Bake in moderate oven for about 1-2 hours. Temperatures that are too low during cooking and baking tend to make the mämmi bitter. Baked mämmi will be cooled quickly and served with cold cream and sugar. Hyvää ruokahalua!

***To bring Finnish pääsiäinen (Easter) to your table, grow some rye grass in a large pan (start about 2-3 weeks before Easter, inside, of course) and place feathery little toy chickies in it. Don't forget to look for pussy willows to include in your arrangements of tulips, narcissi, crocuses and lilies, or let them go solo! Yellow is the color for pääsiäinen, so go for it!***

24 Apr 2003 at 1:14, Helsinki