Do Finns usually make the Christmas casseroles themselves?

raumagal · Post by **raumagal** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:54 pm

I was in the store in the spice aisle and was looking for whole cloves for the ham. I couldn't see them on the shelf and I was tired and couldn't for the life of me remember what they were called. I decided to ask one person who was in the same aisle. He said "kaneli" no, hmmm, uh...and told me to ask a salesperson. I saw another person when looking for a salesperson and they didn't know either. Finally I found a salesperson and they had to call someone else because they didn't know! I thought it was funny because I had just assumed it would be an easy question and everybody would know because it is such a traditional dish.

Anyway, I got to wondering if Finns usually make all the casseroles, ham, rossoli etc. themselves or do they buy it from the shop or some restaurant?

**Sponsor:**

karen · Post by **karen** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:19 am

My MIL makes her own.

That's funny about the nelikka. Are you making American style ham? I don't
think MIL puts whole cloves on the ham. It's just the mustard and bread crumbs.
Now you've got me thinking about it and I'm a drooling mess.

raumagal · Post by **raumagal** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:54 am

A lot of people I know just buy the ready made casseroles. Like yours Karen, my MIL makes her own or gets them homemade from her sisters. I did it one year just so I knew how to do it. That way when my kids can get older I can teach them some Finnish stuff. But I just buy the casseroles now and focus my homemade efforts on the baking side (cookies, joulutorttu etc.) and appetizers.

No, not doing an American ham -- doing the Finnish style mustard breadcrumb ham. I often see those cloves in photos of Christmas ham so I just assumed that was the traditional way. But I guess there are many different variations on the theme. I love the Finnish Christmas ham - it's yummy.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:23 pm

Its also theres slight regional variations in the casseroles... the stuff sold ready is by far easier though. But sometimes its just not "such as mommy made"

My sister tries to "keep up the tradition" and makes her own casseroles - because she can't get them right from the store. In France it is slightly challenging to make from scratch as you can't get the proper swedes - it comes out as yellowish goop, and getting the potato casserole to sweeten properly would require a few tricks (I think grandma deliberately let the potatoes freeze). Of course the kids think its all yucky and they're glad Christmas is only once a year. Personally I've never much apprciated the "traditional christmas" food and after working in places where the buffet was on I'm overdosed on "Christmas buffet" food so my tradition is these days to have a pizza and watch "Bad Santa"

I do eat some of the stuff - like rosolli and even occasionally the swede casserole "off season"... don't know if the salmon is "seasonal" enough to be warranted a mention. And definitely not touched lutefisk even my dad used to be extremely partial to it. Maybe I'll buy a bag for new years... the corridor definitely could use a new lingering stench...

karen · Post by **karen** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:35 pm

My MIL always serves salmon as a pregnancy test for me

. Before I
knew I was pregnant with ds she had cooked some salmon at Christmas and
I flipped out (hormones) and accused her of cooking that vile lutefisk.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:51 pm

"A repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat."

No wonder the Finnish wikipedia claims its perfect for people wanting to loose weight

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:55 pm

Hank W. wrote:Its also theres slight regional variations in the casseroles... the stuff sold ready is by far easier though. But sometimes its just not "such as mommy made" :lol:

There are lots of ways to “season” and dress up the ready-prepared casseroles a bit to make them appear and taste more “home-made”. Peeling off the old surface and adding a drop of cream and butter before popping them in the oven can make wonders. (Some will go all the way and add syrup, egg, and a new patterned breadcrumbs surface as well.)

Juha H. · Post by **Juha H.** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:11 pm

There are lots of recipes, if you try the right forum: http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/ ... 26070#laat

raumagal · Post by **raumagal** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:51 pm

I was reading about the dressing up of the casseroles in one Finnish magazine - Kotiliesi or something like that. I was wondering if it would be really different or just to make it look more homemade. Maybe I will have to try that!

Nice collection of recipes!!

enk · Post by **enk** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:22 am

When I'm in Finland, I can't be arsed to make the casseroles myself
at Christmas, but my MIL thinks I'm a wiz at making them here, too ;D
So yeah, I agree with Jukka's suggestion of adding some cream to them!

I find it pretty funny that my family in the States eats these
casseroles every year, even when we're not there

And they make
the joulutortut from scratch, too! The Christmas table there
is starting to look funny with its Italo-Pole-Finnish-Japanese blend
of Christmas dishes!

-enk

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:09 am

enk wrote:Italo-Pole-Finnish-Japanese blend
of Christmas

Owmigaawd, an US-Finnish-japanese blend is bad enough already ...joulupukki hirtettynä lojuu kuusen oksilla

enk · Post by **enk** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:38 am

Hank W. wrote:
enk wrote:Italo-Pole-Finnish-Japanese blend
of Christmas
Owmigaawd, an US-Finnish-japanese blend is bad enough already ...joulupukki hirtettynä lojuu kuusen oksilla

Well the Italo-Pole blend was the original combo since the Italian side
of my family kinda overrules every one else on what gets to be eaten

But my uncle held his own with his brothers on Christmas Day
(especially when their dad was still alive) and got some Polish food
on the table, too. And at least their cookies have made their way
onto our Christmas table here in Finland

The Fenno-Japanese twist is just added spice

Nice pic, btw; the little one wanted to see what I was laughing about,
so I had to close it quickly

-enk

Rob A. · Post by **Rob A.** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:45 am

Hank W. wrote:...joulupukki hirtettynä lojuu kuusen oksilla

Ah yes... the crucified Santa Claus... A couple of years ago, an older guy in a rural part of Vancouver Island put up one of those on his front lawn... It created a bit of a stir... Made it onto the evening news for a few days... And, interestingly, women almost universally reacted quite negatively, and men almost universally found it amusing...

...And lutefisk...

I'm pretty sure I had some of that once on a Danish ferry... Whatever the fish concoction was, I liked it... Though you have to wonder what state of mind could have conceived of such a thing as lutefisk...

It's not like the preparation is easy... Must have been an accidental, or maybe a desperate, discovery...

And from wikipedia I see there is a Finnish word for the results of a preparation "screw up"...saippuakala

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:54 pm

raumagal wrote:Anyway, I got to wondering if Finns usually make all the casseroles, ham, rossoli etc. themselves or do they buy it from the shop or some restaurant?

Our family buys the ready-made casseroles, for convenience, but we will usually dress them up a bit with cream and butter.

Since a modern Finnish Christmas dinner has an abundance of dishes and side dishes, and since the casseroles can be quite filling in themselves, they end up being treated primarily as condiments – only relatively small amounts of each variety will actually be consumed. It’s more about getting that “taste of Christmas” than gorging on the stuff, at least in our family. All four traditional casserole types (malted potato, rutabaga/swede, liver, carrot) are viewed as important, though, and it just wouldn’t be a “real” Christmas dinner if they were missing from the table.

The main dish, on our Christmas table, is Karelian hot pot (stew) – the all-time favorite of a traditional, folksy Finnish feast table, regardless of the celebration. The pot is served with the ubiquitous boiled potatoes.

The Christmas ham is of course an important side dish (or rather: the most important side dish, as it is so prominent feature of a Finnish Christmas dinner table!), and eaten as a cold cut throughout the Christmas holidays. My family likes their ham slightly overdone, and we do the whole mustard-breadcrumps-clove coating thing “by the book”. We also “brew” kotikalja [1] for Christmas. The supermarket version has quite a different taste to the home-made stuff – much closer to regular beer than how we feel kotikalja should be – so we prefer making it ourselves.

• • •

My grandma will turn 90 in a couple of years but she still makes many of the Christmas dishes herself. For example, we get a batch of home-made rosolli salad from her every year. She uses a hand-crank meat grinder for chopping up the ingredients, and that makes the consistency of her home-made rosolli much finer and nicer than the stuff that passes for rosolli in the supermarkets (her rosolli is perhaps of a bit drier, less soggy variety, too.) We very much prefer her version, and I think should she begin to feel too old for kitchen at some point, someone else in the family will have to take over and learn how to make rosolli grandma’s way.

Grandma has also made it a personal tradition to bake a pullapoika or a pullatyttö for each of her grandchildren around Christmas time, no matter how old they are... :) The picture is not of her bakings (her pullatyttö’s are not designed quite that... way) but the idea is similar.

_____
[1] See here as well.

enk · Post by **enk** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:06 pm

Learn how to make it your grandma's way this Christmas, Jukka.
I'm still not kicking myself for learning to make some of the Christmas
foods that the older people in my family used to make and now
no one knows how they were made.

On the same topic: anyone got a good recipe for a Chicago-style kolacky,
let me know! (Something similar to this one:
http://www.suntimes.com/recipes/cookies ... cky.recipe , but
looking like this page's http://ilgiardinodeldolce.com/cookies.htm).

-enk

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