Doug on Food in Oslo

 It's intriguing to relocate abroad for a protracted period. One thing that makes this different from a brief visit is that restaurant dining will not figure very prominently in your cuisine. We rarely eat out back home in Minneapolis, and we knew this would be the case here too, if things turned out to be as expensive as we'd heard.

They did.

The basic exchange rate is 6 kroner to 1 US dollar. 

So--

cup of coffee out: 22-30 kr, i.e., USD 3.65-5.00

cheapest meal out at somewhat nice restaurant, not fancy but OK: 100 kr, i.e., USD16.65

Thus, eating in and shopping at grocery stores are a matter of keen interest.

Oslo: not a food town.

Grocery shopping here is a bit like it used to be in Manhattan, meaning lots of small grocery stores stuffed into spaces between apartment buildings and small retail, always ground-floor or a step down from the street. There are grocery stores everywhere, as many as two on some city blocks. What almost all of them have in common is a four-letter word prominent in their name: Rimi, Kiwi, Rema 1000, Meny, Coop (pronounced like chicken coop); ICA is a three-letter exception.

 Even when these stores are more capacious than they at first appear, and actually are at street level, they have a bunkered underground feel (no windows, ever--maybe Norwegians think sunlight damages food; maybe it does...). With so many stores, and with our milk supply needing frequent replenishing, we have visited most of the venues within walking distance of our apartment. Several of them are similar in their (relatively) lower prices, a couple of them charge more and offer more abundant variety and a slightly less harrowing environment.

Despite some claims I have seen online, specialty food vendors--butchers, fishmongers--are not a practical alternative for shopping here. They are few and far between, and basically only for Norway's "one percent." The shocking thing is the high price of fish in particular. Do you want to pay USD50 for a pound of cod? I didn't think so. So, no, we aren't dining on fish, and neither do most Norwegians. It is true that any market has a supply of shrimp, both the small kind in jars, cleaned and ready to eat, and a big self-serve case of the frozen buggers, a bit larger, with heads and legs still attached, ready for boiling. Since we have a serious division in our family about shrimp, we haven't tried these yet.

What do Norwegians eat?

We had thought this was a big, big dairy country. And it just might be. But milk, almost only seen in quart-sized containers, costs 13.80 kr per quart at one of the cheaper stores, i.e., USD2.30 or USD 4.60 per half-gallon. Back home we buy a half-gallon of organic 1%-fat milk at Costco (admittedly at a modest discount) for something like USD2.40, so milk is about twice as expensive here and doesn't appear to be purchased by Norwegians in large quantities. Also, no organic milk. Really not a lot of organic offerings in general (although, curiously, most stores have a gluten-free section).

The dairy scene here is dominated by one company, Tine (pronounced like the woman's name "Tina"), which appears to be a collaborative of the nation's dairy farmers and something close to a monopoly. Almost everything dairy is Tine. At least they sell milk in low-fat varieties. 

Not so with yogurt. My usual breakfast for a long time is yogurt with muesli. Nice for me, there are usually a few varieties of muesli available in stores here (unlike back home). But the variety of European yogurt I thought I'd be sampling here--just not available. Tine makes one kind of yogurt, which is nice and unflavored, as I like it. (Rebecca says, "Bleh! It tastes chalky.") But it is full-fat--4%--which I'm not used to. So I try not to eat too much of it. Supposedly there is a wondrous array of heirloom bacteria varieties available in yogurts from different countries on the Continent, but this supposed bounty is absent from the stores here. Tine--with, I am guessing, a big assist from tariffs on imports--gives you one kind, I hope you like it (it's really fine). 

Actually, while you can't get 2%-fat or 1%-fat yogurt, and you have to read the fine print to find out how much fat content the regular Tine yogurt contains, there is another type of yogurt in the stores here that advertises its fat content clearly. This comes in either 7% fat or 10% fat.

People here do walk a lot.

While we're on dairy, two ice cream brands, Diplom-Is and Hennig Olsen, dominate the market. (The approximate equivalent brands in the States would be, respectively, Edy's and Blue Bunny.) The former is less sweet and much creamier, better quality than its equivalent in the States. Two liters (a little less than a half-gallon, costs between USD 5.50 and 6.00. There is some Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's available (at extraordinary prices), but the market segmentation into cheapo ice cream and super-premium that has overtaken the US market hasn't caught on here so much.

Again, what do Norwegians eat?

There is a lot of cheese in the stores, so I am guessing that is a big part of the diet. About 90% of it from Tine, basically in three varieties: Jarlsberg, Norvegia (rather soft and creamy, somewhat buttery), and Julost (kind of halfway between the other two; kids and Rebecca think the Julost has a slight cheddar flavor). You can also get the sweet brown cheese that catches on fire, a Norwegian tradition (the cheese, not setting it afire, but apparently it is inflammable).

Also, the stores are filled with extensive packages of sliced ham and sliced salami. A lot of pork in the diet here. Not much to say about this, but there is a a hell of a lot of it.

Finally, the centerpiece of modern Norwegian life, it seems--the frozen pizzas and pork hot dogs. Some say that Norwegians have the highest per capita consumption of frozen pizza of any country in the world. Could be. We've tried it once. About what you'd think. One of those we tried, at kids' request, was three-cheese. From Tine. (This 12-inch pie cost us 90K or $15.)

As for produce, it's not emphasized. The veg-and-fruit section of the market usually isn't big, not put on proud display. There are some imports from the Low Countries and Spain, perhaps allowed because there's just not that much you can grow in Norway's climate. A package of 6 Pink Lady apples (nonorganic) runs 36K or USD6.00. A small head of broccoli is 14K, or about USD2.30. We stick to carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. The other vegetables are hard to find and out of reach, price-wise.

What does this leave us with?

Bread.

The staff of life, indeed. The one kind of specialty food shop here in abundance are good-quality bakeries, some independents and some chains, that appear every few blocks. The bread is very good. A loaf will cost 30-50 kr, i.e., USD5.00-8.35. A larger loaf can last a while and this is not as big a price differential over similar offerings in the US as with other food products. In fact, even in the grocery stores, the basic, cheaper sandwich bread on offer is distinctly better than its counterpart in the US. Even the white bread is chewier, with more substance. There is some pre-sliced bread, but most is sold whole. Every grocery store has a self-service electric slicer (be careful!) that you can use to make thin, even sandwich slices. So all this points to a diet that leans on bread heavily --good quality, filling, abundant, not as overpriced as other things.

I do feel bad for anyone here who really suffers from celiac disease.

So, a cold supper of bread with some sliced cheese, maybe some ham or salami, and whatever veggies or fruit we can scare up that doesn't look too sad: This has quickly become our default dinner, and so far we've not tired of it. The kids, especially, like it.When we do feel the need for something different, it's pizza time again!

A new civic slogan: "Oslo--come for the climate, stay for the bread."