Posts written by kari

I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, where I majored in Norwegian and History. During college, I spent almost a year living in Oslo, Norway, where I attended the University of Oslo and completed an internship at the United States Embassy. I have worked for Concordia Language Villages as a pre-K Norwegian teacher and have taught an adult Norwegian language class. Right now, I keep up by writing this Norwegian blog for Transparent Language. Please read and share your thoughts! I will be continuing this blog from my future residence in the Norwegian arctic!

Smörgås Chef at Scandinavia House, New York City

Posted by kari 3 Comments
Nov 26 2011

chef and owner

As Thanksgiving was just a couple of days ago and holiday parties are finding their way on my calendar, mat er temaet på denne tiden av året (food is the theme at this time of year).  I was fortunate to attend 3 Thanksgiving celebrations on Thursday, 2 of which I consumed full meals at.  Some of the mat we consumed include the following:

kalkun (turkey)

flere typer poteter (several types of potatoes)

grønne bønner (green beans)

brød (bread)

stuffing (translation?)

salat (salad)

gresskar pai (pumpkin pie)

søtpotet pai (sweet potato pie)

Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite helligdag (holiday) of the year because it´s all about god mat og godt selskap (good food and good company).  It´s not a religious hellidag and gaver (gifts) are not typically involved.

As you probably know, Norwegians do not celebrate Thanksgiving.  I simply have mat on the brain right now and so I´ve been searching for Norwegian restaurants to attend in various cities around the country if and when I end up there.  I discovered the Smörgås Chef at Scandinavia House in New York City.  There are 3 locations in NYC:

1) Wall Street

2) Midtown

3) West Village

Both the mat and the atmosfære (atmosphere) look and sound amazing!

Smörgås Chef  ”is proud to serve a fresh and unique menu based on the principles of “New Nordic Cuisine,” which is deeply committed to using local, sustainable, and all-natural ingredients. Smorgas owns and operates its own 150-acre farm in the Catskills.”

The 150 acre farm in the Catskills is called Blenheim Hill Farm.  The farm has a 2 acre lake which provides plenty of water for the livestock and also a place to swim on hot summer days.  There is an abundance of lønnetrær (maple trees) from which sirup (syrup) is extracted.

 

There are kuer (cows), griser (pigs), kyllinger (chickens), and sauer (sheep) and Blenheim Hill.  They roam freely.

 

 

 

Items you will find on the menu include Nordic Chips with caviar dip, Smorgas Sliders, Goat Cheese and beet salad, Aquavit Cured Gravlaks (Aquavit cured salmon), Wild Mushroom Omelette, Herring Quartet, Ham and Jarlsberg Skillet, Duck Leg Confit with Cherries, and for dessert, your options include riskrem (rice cream), raspberry almond cake, and various vafler (waffles) and sorbets.  Special drinks include Norwegian Wood, Viking Burial, Miss Bliss, and many other creatively named and mixed beverages.  There are also a number of Scandinavian beers, various kinds of Aquavit, sodas, and coffee drinks.

I can´t wait to go to one of the 3 locations and enjoy a delicious Norwegian meal in NYC!

Norwegian Compound Words

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Nov 22 2011

Small Animal Clinic

Menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner (human rights organizations) is one of the longer compound words in Norwegian.  Others include sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator), and En mMidsommernattsdrøm (A Midsummer Night´s Dream).

The Norwegian language has quite a few compound words in it.  In my experience as a new student of the Norwegian language, as well as as an instructor, compound words can be difficult for new learners.  Especially at the beginning, it can be difficult to separate the individual words within compound words.  You may have just learned the word menneske (person) but when you see it with rettighetsorganisasjoner, it looks completely different and you might not notice it right away.  It becomes even more difficult when the word you may know is in the middle of a compound word, i.e. natt in midsommernattsdrøm. The word natt kind of gets lost.

Although it may be difficult, learning compound words is important in understanding and speaking Norwegian.  The reason for this is because compound words are words themselves separately and you can severely mislead or misunderstand your audience if you use compound words by themselves.  An example of this is: lammekoteletter (lamb chops) broken up into lamme koteletter (lame or paralyzed chops).  Another example is røykfritt (smoke-free) or røyke fritt (smoke freely), the exact opposite of the intended meaning.  The reason these easy-to-make errors exist is because usually one word is a noun and one word a verb or an adjective so the tense of the words can change as well as involve an action.

I think compound words are a fun part of the language to learn about because you learn about several different words in one and it quickly teaches you to pay attention to detail.  It is also important to stress the right syllable in compound words (i.e. stress lamme in lammekotelleter).

And to name a few more:

smult ring (lard ring) and smultring (doughnut)

klippfisk (clipfish) and klipp fisk (cut fish)

århundre (century) and år hundre (year one hundred)

sommerfugl (butterfly) and sommer fugl (summer bird)

I like compound words.  They´re fun.

 

Thanksgiving in Norway

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Nov 17 2011

Perhaps you have spent a lonely Thanksgiving away from your family, maybe even out of the country.  Fear not, if you happen to be in Norway for some reason during Thanksgiving and you are not with your family or other Americans, you can still enjoy a feast close to those we love here in the U.S.  As November is the only month that I have not spent in Norway, I have not been tasked with making Thanksgiving matretter (dishes) and finding friends to enjoy them with in Norway.  I do have several American friends who have spent Thanksgivings in Norway and they always seem to have a good time and enjoy the mat, despite the fact that Norwegian matbutikker (grocery stores) are nothing like the giants here in the U.S.

If you are in a larger city in Norway, you will likely find one or more of the following matbutikker: ICA, Meny, Coop, Rimi, Rema 1000.  While buying mat in Norwegian matbutikker is relatively comparative to the U.S. in terms of cost (relative to other ´costs of living´), matprodukter that are not common in Norway will of course be dyrere (more expensive).  Items that you will be able to find relatively easily are kalkun (turkey) either at a matbutikk or a slakter (butcher), søtpoteter (sweet potatoes), and tranebær (cranberries).  You will have difficulty finding frozen pie crusts for sure, as well as gresskar purée (pumpkin purée) and certain urter (herbs) that you may enjoy in stuffing or some other matrett.

I was looking for stories from Americans who have made Thanksgiving dinners in Norway and I came across this blog.  It´s about a woman who has to make Thanksgiving dinner for her Norwegian husband and family (who have never eaten it before) and she really has no idea what she´s doing, but everything turned out awesome.  And….they had an eating contest-hard to imagine with a small Norwegian family, but very funny.  Check out the blog here.

Although Norwegians do not typically celebrate Thanksgiving, many American families with Scandinavian descent include things like lefse (or maybe lutefisk or fenelår) in their Thanksgiving meal.  My family always has lefse at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter actually.  It´s just kind of a dessert that ends up on most holiday dining tables.

Happy Thanksgiving whether you are in Norway or anywhere else in the world.

takk-thank you

takknemlig-thankful

Bird Hunting in Norway

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Nov 16 2011

While I haven´t been to Norway for over a year now (crazy that it´s been that long, gotta get back for a visit), I was very much reminded this past weekend of a very fun experience I had in Norway last fall.  This weekend my boyfriend and I took my dog, a weimaraner (pointing breed) up north for å jakte etter fasaner (to hunt pheasants) near Lake Mille Lacs.  We hunted for a couple of hours in the late morning and early afternoon and guess what?  We continued to shed layers until we got down to our t-shirts.  That is pretty crazy for mid-November in Minnesota.  I remember last fall up in the mountains in Salangen Fylke (County), Norway we were also in t-shirts some days when the sun shone bright and there was little wind.  Then there was a day or two when we were all wearing layer upon layer of clothing including vinterluer (winter hats) and hansker (gloves).

While fuglejakt (bird hunting)  in MN, or any kind of jakt for that matter, is different than å gå på jakt i Norge both because of the type of dyr (animals) and the different topography and climate, the rules and reasons for engaging the activity are similar, as is the popularity.  I can´t seem to find good data on the number of jegere (hunters) in Minnesota, but because Norway has a state-run association of jegere og fiskere (Norges jeger og fiskerforbund), I know that 120,000 individuals are medlemmer (members) of this association.  These 120,000 medlemmer belong to 570 local jeger og fisker klubber.

rype (grouse)

Last fall in Norway, I went with a friend and his fellow jeger og fisker venner (friends) up into the mountains in Salangen Fylke  for å jakte etter rype (grouse).  I had my hund (dog) along and another guy had his very experienced flushing hund.  The Weimaraner rase (breed) is a peker rase (pointint breed), but (perhaps because she had no training whatsoever), she did not peke.  She was, however, very helpful retrieving.  The other hund would peke, someone would skyte (shoot)  and my hund would hente fuglen (retrieve the bird).

As it turns out, she did the same this weekend when we jakte etter fasaner!  We´d walk through the tall grass and try to get her to run in there to scare up fugler.  She didn´t peke at all, but if we shot a fugl, she was extremely helpful in finding it.  I swear these were super fugler!  Several of them were såret (wounded) and were very difficult to find after they ran around in the brush.  Stella did a great job though!

In any case, now you know a few Norwegian words associated with fuglejakt.  I will write a post later with more specific information on the kind of fugler one can jakte.

The Valdres Region of Norway

Posted by kari No Comments
Nov 9 2011

The other day I posted about Rakfisk Festival, which is a festival that takes place every year in celebration of fermented trout and char, as well as other local food production and handicrafts.  Fagernes, a small city in the region of Valdres, Norway is where the annual festival takes place.  Although I´ve driven through Valdres, I did not really know that much about the region–until now.  So, I thought I´d write a bit about the Valdres region of Norway and what it is known for, what one can do there, etc.

First, I´d like to begin by saying that the dialects people speak from this central region of the country are very different than the rest of the country. When I studied at the University of Oslo, I had a class with a girl named Karine who was from Valdres  and I could literally barely understand her.  My Norwegian is by no means perfect, but I am fluent and I can understand all other dialects I´ve heard.  This one was tough though.  I mean, it was almost like the different between spoken Norwegian and Danish-she used completely different words sometimes.  For example, here are some words where you can see a marked difference between a Valdres dialect and standard bokmål:

Examples of local words Squirrel - Norwegian: ekorn, Valdres: ikødn All right (as in an all right person) – Norwegian: grei, Valdres: snodig (which in Norwegian normally means strange/funny) Lonely - Norwegian: ensomt, Valdres: aule

Oppland County

Let´s move on to geography and demographics.  Valdres belongs to the fylke (county) of Oppland and is made up of 6 municipalities:

  • Sør-Aurdal (The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Bagn)
  • Nord-Aurdal (The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Fagernes)
  • Vestre Slidre (The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Slidre)
  • Øystre Slidre (The administrative centre of the municipality is the village Heggenes)
  • Etnedal (The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Bruflat)
  • Vang (The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vang i Valdres)
Valdres is situated between the valleys of Gudbrandsdal and Hallingdal (dal means valley) approximately halfway between Oslo and Bergen.  The major European highway E16 runs through it and it also has an airport (in Fagernes).  This part of the country is stunning with all of the mountain ranges and valleys and small farms.
Historically, agriculture was a major industry in Valdres, but today tourism and trout fishing have surpassed agriculture as forms of livelihood.  There is plenty to do for tourists who visit Valdres.  Valdres is well known, as mentioned earlier, for trout fishing, as well as cycling, hiking, horse riding, rafting, golf, and of course skiing in the winter.
Let´s go to Valdres! 
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