Norwegian domestic life
DOMESTIC LIFE
Although Norwegians treasure their solitude and privacy, they do enjoy
social occasions. In rural areas social occasions are often combined with
cooperative efforts concerned with smoking, pickling, salting, and
preserving meats and fish, preserving berries and other fruits and
communal baking of huge batches of flatbrod, enough for a whole
season. The dimpled crispy round bread keeps well and is the perfect
accompaniment to the many cheeses made over the summer months when the
sheep's and goat's milk is at its richest.
Refrigerators and freezers are used almost everywhere, but traditional
foods and implements continue to play an important role in the Norwegian
kjokken (kitchen). Indeed, many large restaurants and modern homes
proudly use the intricately carved wooden butter molds that were in use
hundreds of years ago.
Although agriculture is fully mechanized, the Norwegian farmer still keeps
a few cream-colored Westland "fjord ponies," more out of nostalgia than
need. And dotted over the landscape are the stabburs, two-floor
storehouses reminiscent of a time before electricity and freezers, yet
still much in use. The main floor is used to store grains, apples and
pears, home preserves, pickles and root vegetables. And the sweet and
musty food smells mingle with the heady aromas of fermenting beer and wine
and waft upward to the second story which is used as a guest house and
where the Norwegian family proudly keep some of their best possessions.
Travel throughout the more remote areas is often difficult, and guests are
always welcomed and expected to stay at least overnight.
Also reminiscent of former times are saeters, the tiny cabins
perched precariously on craggy ledges near the pastures. In summer months
the women of the household would often spend weeks at a time at the
saeters busily collecting, churning, and aging the creamy milk from
sheep and goats into a variety of cheeses. Today most of the cheese making
is carried out commercially in factories, and the picturesque saeter is
treasured as a summer cottage by the solitude-hungry urban Norwegian.