Taste Finland
Suomi
A country of lakes and forest between Sweden and Russia, eating rye, fish, berries, dairy and more coffee than anyone else.
Finnish food is plain, filling and tied to the seasons harder than most. Dark sour rye bread is on every table. Salmon and lake fish go into creamy soups; Karelian pies are breakfast; cardamom buns go with the many daily coffees. Summer means new potatoes with dill, crayfish parties and buckets of wild bilberries and lingonberries that end up in pies and jars. Lapland adds reindeer, cloudberries and strong cheese. Finns season lightly, with dill, allspice, white pepper and salt, and lean on butter and cream.
5 recipes · 1 cuisine
All dishes 5
- 45 min
Lohikeitto
Finnish salmon soup: potatoes, leek and salmon in a light cream broth with allspice and a lot of dill.
Easy
- 2 hr
Karelian pies
Karjalanpiirakka
Finnish rye-crusted oval pies with rice porridge filling, brushed with butter and eaten with egg butter.
Medium
- 2 hr 29 min
Korvapuusti
Finnish cinnamon buns: heavy on cardamom, cut on the slant and pressed so they splay into an ear shape.
Medium
- 1 hr
Poronkäristys
Lapland sautéed reindeer: paper-thin shavings of meat cooked in butter, with mashed potato and lingonberry.
Easy
- 1 hr
Finnish blueberry pie
Mustikkapiirakka
Finnish blueberry pie: a soft cardamom base, wild blueberries and a sour-cream custard, baked in a tray.
Easy
Regional cuisines
Think you know Finland food?
5 quiz dishes. Optional — Passport stamps still come from cooking.
Take the Finland food quizFood history
Six centuries under Sweden and one under Russia left Finland with pulla and meatballs from the west and pies, blini and sour cream from the east. Rye and barley were the grains that survived the climate; potatoes came in the 1700s. The 1944 border changes moved Karelian cooks west and made their pies national. Post-war dairy abundance put cream in the fish soup. The everyman's right to roam keeps foraging a normal weekend activity rather than a trend.
Common ingredients
Techniques
- rye baking
- slow milk porridges
- cream-based fish soups
- sautéing thin-shaved game
- berry pies and custards