Written by: Heran Daniel 

What makes Norwegian people so typical!

Why typical Norwegian? It is so extraordinary that it is a country with inhabitants from all over the world. We Norwegians eat pizza; tandoori, and even sometimes we play American football. But is there something that makes us Norwegians so typical, something that is found in Norway or originally made in Norway that makes it typical, or even so simply a common thing in Norway where it is nowhere to be found in other countries.

In order to find what really typical Norwegian people do or love to eat, I went around and asked some people and I amazingly found out more than I even knew and I’m sure you will be amused by some of them. “Matpakke” what is matpakke? Matpakke translated means simply “Packed food”. This is practically more of a lifestyle than just food because it consists a single slice bread with cheese, salmon or any type of cream cheese on top of it, after that it’s wrapped carefully with sheets of paper. It is popular that you always find it among the Norwegian students, people that go skiing and students that are in university. “Egen Kopp Kaffe” this word may sound confusing but it is just simply translated “to have your own cup of coffee” It is so typical that you see every Norwegian is passionate about their coffee, and to be honest they drink a whole lot of it.

NOT A REAL CHEESE?

Do not judge a book by its cover and same goes for this one; do not judge it because it looks brown. Once you taste it you can never stop eating it. “Brunost” is a Norwegian brown cheese and it cannot be called real cheese because of due to production process. The taste is amusing but most of all one can tell just by smelling it because it literally smells like caramel. Young adults or even youngsters that live in Norway love to eat it with waffles as topping with a little jam berries that will give the cheese a characteristic taste. Following with it as you can see in the picture is “The cheese slicer”(Ostehøvelen) that was invented and patented in Norway and is a famous tool. This cheese slicer can be found in Norwegian houses and we Norwegians use it to cut hard cheese or Brunost (Brown cheese).

Picture by: Wayward Travels 

Hytte (Wooden Cottage)

Norwegians love their mountains, sea, overall nature. Even though most Norwegians own houses in cities, they love to interact or simply be close to nature and this is the most important aspect of Norwegian lifestyle. (Hytte) is a wooden cottage that is found in the mountains without electricity? Yeah, it is quite fascinating to think that being without The Internet for a week or even longer than that, but some like to fancy things up so there are some people that put TV, Wi-Fi to get that warm and cozy feeling while drinking their   coffee.