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Hannu MarttilaHomemade
Ladies in the kitchen: Edit Reinilä, Sofie Calonius and Valma Krank, the writers of the first Kotiruoka (‘Home cooking’) cook-book in their lace-trimmed work costumes, just a century ago. Photo: Otava.
Kotiruoka. Keittokirja kotia ja koulua varten [Home cooking. Cookbook for home and school] Toim. [Ed. by] Edit Reinilä, Sofie Calonius, Valma Krank. Facsimile of 1908 edition Helsinki: Otava, 2008. 392 p., ill. ISBN 978-951-1-22674-1 € 29, hardback
Kotiruoka [Home cooking] Toim. [Ed. by] Kaisa Isotalo & Raija Kuittinen. 74th, revised edition Helsinki: Otava, 2008. 639 p., ill. ISBN 978-951-1-22307-8 € 25, hardback
Mämmi Teksti ja valokuvat [Text and photographs]: Ahmed Ladarsi Helsinki: Perhemediat, 2008. 215 p., ill. ISBN 978-952-494-170-9 € 38, hardback
The ecological thriller Sarasvatin hiekkaa (‘Sands of the Sarasvati’, 2006) by the author Risto Isomäki (his article on climate change appears on page 129) ends with a glimmer of hope amid global tragedy. In underwater libraries and bookstores in Europe’s coastal towns that have sunk into the sea, divers are searching for books to help survivors of the catastrophe learn forgotten survival skills. Kotiruoka (‘Home cooking’), could be one of these. Over a million copies of this classic home cookbook, which first appeared in 1908, have been printed – quite an achievement in a country of five million. This edition, issued in honour of the book’s 100th anniversary is the seventy-fourth edition; the first has also been reprinted in a facsimile edition. Kotiruoka has been only slightly modernised in its hundred years, and there is not as great a variance as might be expected between the first and latest versions. Even the first Kotiruoka paid great attention to vegetable dishes and preservation. It’s true you will seek fresh green salads, aside from the obligatory lettuce and tomato salad, in vain. Vegetable soups are to be made with beef broth, though a ‘vegetarian vegetable soup’ is also included. The preservation section is still extensive in the 74th edition, even though freezers have long provided aid to the preserver. Judging by the massive annual advertising campaigns taking place in June, it appears that every Finnish family has a national obligation to freeze all the summer’s berries, peas, carrots and parsley – in a sort of collective burial ceremony by the side of those white coffin-like boxes. The decades have brought new contributions to Kotiruoka. The first printing was more selective, considering consumer spending at the time; it was aimed especially at the prospering middle class in the towns. The carefully attired family pictured on the cover in their art nouveau dining room are about to begin a meal served by a domestic; the family might include the headmaster of a Pori high school, or a Joensuu draper, or a pulp mill clerk from Kymenlaakso. Kotiruoka reflected the society of its time: Finland had just granted the right to vote to all its citizens and acquired a single-chamber parliament, and the food culture was shifting from the elaborate ceremony of the class-based society to a civilian society’s emphasis on practicality, health and thrift. One hundred years later, Kotiruoka can be read for its perspective on economising and re-using raw materials. Leftovers were used the next day: the book’s index steers you to handy information on what to do with egg whites and bones from roasts. The ingredients are mostly home-grown – the only imported fish is Norwegian dried cod, needed for Christmas lutefisk. The meat section offers handsome examples of how ingredients were not wasted: heart and lung stew, sweetbread, calf brains and pressed brawn from pigs’ heads. Game birds – wood grouse and black grouse, partridge, wild duck – obviously belonged in a cookbook a hundred years ago, but there were only a couple of chicken recipes: hens were for egg production, and once their egg career was over, they didn’t have much left to offer the pot. Today, fat grouse and scrawny chickens have been replaced by plump industrially-bred broiler chickens. (Sadly, there are no organic chickens available in Finnish shops.) Among the more fascinating items in the 1908 Kotiruoka is grass box baking: soup, porridge or stews are heated to the boiling point and then wrapped in grass or newspapers in a closed, insulated box, in which the food finishes cooking with its own energy. My dear departed mother made good use of this wonder method of saving time and money when preparing food for her family of six. Surprisingly enough, this stew box is not mentioned in the new Kotiruoka. The book has admitted more and more of the outside world with each edition. The most important influences on Finnish food culture have come from the west, from Sweden – and via Sweden from French and a little from German cuisine – and from the east, from Russia. In recent decades pizza and pasta (in the first edition, ‘macaroni’ was under vegetable dishes), falafel and tofu, paella, fondue and naan breads have all arrived at their own pace. Finnishness is nevertheless a Kotiruoka fundamental, as evidenced, for instance, in the fish recipes. In one hundred years the selection of sea creatures has only expanded to include mussels, (Finnish-raised) salmon, shrimp, frozen coley, and tuna fish, the endangered nature of which is duly noted. The fish selection of the ordinary country market, if there is such, may include fish imported from as far away as Thailand, but finding Finnish fish may be more laborious. Since Kotiruoka has tried more and more to stress the modern concepts of healthy eating, perhaps future editions could pay more attention to the ethics of production. One of the classic traditional foods, the sweetened malt rye porridge, called mämmi, is found in both the new and old Kotiruoka with only small changes. The recipe for this dish from western Finland, which may have already been known in the 12th century, was published 300 years ago. Nowadays mämmi is bought pre-packaged in cardboard, imitation birchbark boxes, but even in my own childhood home in 1940s Helsinki we would cook it ourselves and then whisk it frothy in a pot outside in the snow. That culinary ‘black gold’ is dark brown, sticky, sweetish and rye-based. You either love it or hate it, as with so many traditional national foods. Of course the Michelin-starred British chef, Gordon Ramsay, happily joined the ranks of its public detesters during his Helsinki visit last year – the sticky goo was good for the show. Chef Ahmed Ladarsi, who has lived in Finland for 30 years, has loved mämmi from their first spoonful: he has published a beautifully illustrated and designed book on the subject – at once a declaration of love and an overturning of tradition – and he is also the Chairperson of the Finnish Mämmi Association. Ladarsi has studied mämmi preparation in homes and food factories and he presents four preparation methods, all equally valid from the perspective of mämmi history. This traditional food takes on a surprising number of forms in the book: it becomes the base for truffle sweets, cake batter, tiramisú, breads, pasta, pizza, cheese souffle, drinks and sauces. Some theories claim that mämmi arose originally as a by-product of beer production; since I recall hearing that a malt drink has been successfully made from mämmi, it appears to have somehow returned to its roots. As passionate mämmi defender, Ladarsi, with Tunisian roots but who has absorbed much of Finland, is more Finnish than many who pride themselves on their peasant roots: he seems appalled by the suggestion that mämmi originally came to Finland from Persia.
Translated by Jill G. Timbers
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