Vappu means party :)

Vappu is coming and I am looking forward to the annual day of crazed drunken Finns running around Helsinki in goofy-looking white hats and auto mechanic coveralls :) Jarkko gives me a dirty look whenever I mention just how goofy the hats, the ylioppilaslakki, look on people...and I like wearing hats :) It is the day for labour and university students and just about everyone else who feels like getting their May Day drink on and snack/funnel cake on. Here's to the onset of May and hopefully it won't snow this year. :)

"Vappu is the Memorial Day of Saint Labor, holiday of spring and university students and also the workers international festival and demonstration day. It has been celebrated in Finland since 1890, and, in addition, in many countries it has been paid day-off since 1918. At Vappu, students and family generally drink mead and eat Mayday fritters, however, some drink beer and other alcoholic drinks.

Big festivals abound in the city streets and in market places. People of all ages wear their student caps. Students gather around a statue, such as havasamanda in Helsinki, and wash the statue before putting a white cap on her head."

A Vappu lexicon....

• tippaleipä : a "funnel cake" sort of food.
• sima : Finnish bubbly lemonade.
• Wappu/Vappu : May 1st.
• haalarit : the overalls that used to only be worn by technical students, which have subsequently been appropriated by all students. Students often exchange portions of their sleeves/pants' leg with each other and then sew them on their own, giving them different color combos.
• ylioppilaslakki : the white and black hat worn by students. For older people, their hats are usually yellowed with age though :)

May Day Cookies
Tippaleivät

• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 dl milk
• 4 dl flour
• ½ tsp vanilla

To fry:

• vegetable or coconut oil

Mix the eggs and sugar, but don't beat! Add the other ingredients and stir into a smooth batter.

Put the batter into a paper cone or a pastry bag fitted with a small-holed nozzle.

Squeeze the batter in a thin band into the hot oil. Use a spiral motion to form nest-like cookies. If possible, use a metal ring in the pot to keep the cookies in shape.

When the cookies have turned golden brown, remove and drain them on paper towels.

Dust the cold cookies with powdered sugar.

I have read another recipe in Finnish that suggests using a metal soup ladle, sitting half-submerged in hot oil, to shape the cakes which seems far more practical than a 'metal ring'

permalink Ω 25 April 2003, Helsinki

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!***

permalink Ω 24 April 2003, Helsinki

Is Finland still a part of Moscow?

I found a rather amusing site, intercultural relationships...or facts about finns, which has quite a nice assortment of humour to be had about Finland, its language, its people and their way of life. The FAQ, complete with the nationalities who ask them, is rather priceless :)

permalink Ω 24 April 2003, Helsinki

Big brother meets war chalking

On the sidewalks of Helsinki these little images have started appearing. It took me passing by three of them to realise that they weren't just something a drunken art student did on a Friday night but a deliberate marking to designate that a security camera is present. It's funny that I had never noticed these cameras before the marking, one I originally mistook for an anvil, forced me to see them. In the era of Big Brother rising it would seem to be far more interesting than marking where you can score a free wireless signal. I don't know if there is enough paint in the US to mark all the sidewalks where security cameras are installed but it would be a remarkable US-wide art installation with a Orwellian twist.

permalink Ω 19 April 2003, Helsinki

Welcome to my ghetto

We have now taken siege of the rooms we actually live in, the bedroom and diningroom, so we've retreated into the kitchen behind thick plastic to give us some false hope that it will help keep things dust-, grit- and grime-free. The bedroom has proven to be a wonderland of bad wallpaper archaeology but the Finnish Museum isn't interested in it as an exhibit. I spent the weekend chiseling 5 layers of awful wallpaper off the wall and unearthing a ventilation grate that, yes, had been wallpapered over and hidden behind a giant bad, cheap closet that we had removed. I say 'unearth' as there was at least a foot or more of rubble/sand/mortar accumulated over the past 80 years behind the closed vents after I managed to wedge them open. I stripped the paint off the grate, sanded it and gave it a coat of silver paint for metal and repaired the broken vent mechanism too. After removing the paper it looks better than before (which really isn't saying much :) but the walls, and ceiling, still need to be plastered smooth, primed and painted.

permalink Ω 6 April 2003, Helsinki

The dog of peace

The editors of The Bark magazine had a dog [ with a little help from photoshop ] do what people are unable to do these days on movie posters and seemingly many other things; make the sign of peace. It's on the back cover of the latest issue of The Bark or you can download the pdf from their website.

permalink Ω 6 April 2003, Helsinki