Talkkuna

« Talkkuna Blueberry Pie »

I watched Jarkko dump a bunch of powdery stuff into his yogurt one morning to make it into a gloopy sort of porridge. Curious, I asked to try it and it tasted a bit like a cold, creamy, malty cereal. When he told me what it was, I hadn't ever heard of it, hadn't ever tried it even though I likely passed by it on the shelves in the grocery hundreds of times. A week or two later I noticed a wee new book, Pieni talkkunakirja, all about talkkuna so I bought a copy to read more about this mysterious and reasonably tasty new foodstuff. The book is short but it's beautifully put together and has quite a lot of factoids about talkkuna along with some recipes containing talkkuna. When I started poking around with google to find more information about talkkuna, I found that the author keeps a blog and is currently working on a book on Finnish fleamarkets that I'm looking forward to reading [He also has a very interesting collection of Finnish pulp fiction book covers]. The book has more information about talkkuna than most people would ever need or want to know, but I'll share a bit of the highlights, slightly condensed and paraphrased, since there appears to be virtually nothing in English available on the net about it. :)

Talkkuna came to Finland in the 1700's but it had been eaten in similar forms long before then. It is believed that it arrived in Finland from the Slavs and reached Karelia and Vepsä first. (Interesting that it arrived in Eastern Finland first, but is a traditional food in the Southwestern part of the country.) Talkkuna was often used as a snack food and dessert. There's a similar food Estonia called "kama" that's served cold. It isn't a seasonal food but it is eaten quite often in Autumn with the harvest and in winter. Urbanization has largely destroyed much of the talkkuna tradition as the city dwellers have either forgotten about it or shun the dry, strange flour from the countryside. Many of the people from the larger generation [baby boomers?] also have not introduced their children to talkkuna. The Helsinki University Savo Guild have been known to have a talkkuna celebration, "Talakkunat", in late November in past years dating back to 1887.

Talkkuna consists of cooked ground oats or barley which sometimes includes ground peas or other flours. Everywhere save Northern Finland talkkuna is used in various foods and there is quite a bit of variation in the grains used from region to region. In Northern Karelia talkkuna is made with barley and in Häme and Southwestern Finland (i.e. Turku) the base of talkkuna is oat flour. In the South Talkkuna can also be found to contain rye and wheat. Traditionally, the tasty and nutritional ingredients are peas and beans which are ground and mixed with the other flours. Talkkuna is traditional in Häme, Southwest Finland and Satakunta (i.e. Pori and Rauma). In Central Finland, the talkkuna is dried in the oven which makes for a darker and stronger tasting flour. In the Savo, Kainu and Oulu regions, talkkuna is typically called 'puurotalkkuna'. It is usually made from barley and coarsely ground. It is not consumed plain, instead it is boiled in water to make a porridge then served with butter or lard.

Talkkuna is known elsewhere in the world, too. The word "talkkuna" is from Indo-European roots. In Afghanistan the word in Pashto is "talxan", in Mongolian it is "t'alxx" and in Russian it is "tolokno" which is the likely origin for the word in Finnish. In Scotland, it is called "brose", a cold porridge of oats that can also be mixed with peas and greens such as nettles, shallots and cabbage. Scotland's cold porridge is an ingredient in a drink called Atholl Brose, which is a mixture of oatmeal, honey and whisky. It can also contain cream. The drink was named due to the Earl of Athol having beaten an enemy by secretly filling a well with the alcoholic concoction. I've never seen this whisky so I've certainly got to try it now. :)

There are a variety of different talkkuna flours in the grocery depending on which grocery you shop at. I've only tried two of them and both of them must be from central Finland given their strong, smokey flavour. I decided to try making a blueberry pie from the Pieni talkkunakirja and find that talkkuna has a very appealing taste in baked goods. This recipe was easy, quick and quite tasty though I think it might have tasted better with a less aggressive talkkuna. My only complaint was that the crust was a wee bit on the dry side which might be solved by adding a bit of milk. I also added talkkuna to the blueberry filling as partly for taste and thickening properties. Vanilla ice cream also takes the pie from good to excellent.

Talkkuna-Blueberry Pie

Makes: 1 pie, approx. 12 servings
Time: about 1 hour including baking
Source: Pieni talkkunakirja

Crust:

• 125g or 1 stick butter
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• about 0,5 dl or 1/4 cup whole milk (optional)
• 2dl or 3/4 cup wheat or all-purpose flour
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup talkkuna flour
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup potato flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Filling:

• 1 litre or 4 cups blueberries ( or about 4 200g packages of frozen blueberries )
• about 2-4 tablespoons potato flour or corn starch (dissolved in a little bit of water or blueberry juice)
• about 3 tablespoons talkkuna (optional)
• about 1dl or 1/2 cup sugar

Topping:

• Vanilla ice cream or sauce

1. Heat oven to 200C/395F. Mix filling ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. If using frozen berries, allow to thaw and adjust the amount of thickener if there's a lot of excess juice
2. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating until fluffy. Add milk.
3. Mix dry ingredients together and gradually add to the butter mixture. It will form a firm dough-like ball. Place dough in ~ 27cm/11in tart/pie pan and press evenly over the bottom and sides. Pour filling over the crust and bake for about 20-30 minutes until filling is set and crust is brown.
4. Cool and serve with vanilla ice cream or sauce.