In Kauppatori market, a vendor sells both plain and salty licorice.
Finnish licorice has a sweetly aromatic, almost earthy taste.
Helsinki on a cloudless summer day. Verdant parks. Sailboats gliding out to sea. In the distance, the gilded onion domes of Ouspensky cathedral. Much of Dr. Zhivago was shot in Helsinki. And why not? It’s a supremely photogenic city, especially today.
Then there’s the rug pier. For obvious reasons, the Finns wash their carpets in summer. They scrub out winter’s grime with pine soap, rinse the rugs in the brackish water of the Gulf of Finland, and lay them out to dry on a wooden railing—even leaving them overnight, since no one would think of stealing them. “If the men come to wash the carpets, they’re allowed to do what ever they want the rest of the year,” says our guide with a small, ironic smile.
The most televised sport in this country of 5 million, after ice hockey, is a race to see how far husbands can carry their wives on their backs. The heavier your spouse, the more points you get—and the more beer you get to drink when it’s all over. Tarja Halonen, the country’s president, famed for her large black doctor’s bag, is called a "Moomin mother" after a popular series of books featuring a family of trolls who, says Wickipedia, “are white, round and furry in appearance, with large snouts that make them resemble hippopotamuses…” Most dinner parties end in the sauna.
No matter. The Finns know how to eat. In fact they consume 22 liters of ice cream per year. And at the end of June Kauppatori, Helsinki’s famous outdoor market, is brimming with summer delicacies like tiny potatoes, fresh crayfish and smoked moose meat. As our buxom blonde guide says, ”You know a culture by its food.”
Actually there are two markets: Kaupahalli or Market Hall is a handsome brick building from 1888, where well-heeled customers politely throng the aisles, noshing on shrimp salad sandwiches, moose salami, licorice-flavored chocolate, and strong espresso. Outside, at the eastern end of the long green Esplanade, you'll find Kauppatori or Market Square, where all of Helsinki shops for gorgeous produce shaded under dark red umbrellas.
Here’s a little of what’s on offer today in Kaupahalli:
Open-faced salmon and shrimp salad sandwiches on rye. Slabs of fresh salmon marinated in crushed “rose pepper” (pink peppercorns) and dill, and in coarsely ground black pepper and lemon zest.
Handmade chocolate bars from Kultasuklaa: white chocolate studded with fruity lingonberries, dark chocolate crunchy with puffed rice, and milk chocolate flavored with bits of salmiakki, or salty licorice. “Not too popular outside Finland,” says our cheerful guide.
Packages of smoked, salted reindeer meat from the north of Finland, canned bear meat, and moose salami.
Glass cases stocked with orderly rows of cheese: There’s a nutty-tasting Swiss, a creamy, slightly tangy oltermanni, and juustoleipa made from reindeer milk. This last cheese has a crust that is caramelized during baking. (According to igourmet, Finnish mothers used to offer a slice of juustoleipa and a cup of coffee to their daughters’ suitors: if a man liked the cheese, he married the girl.)
Paella pans heaped with plump, sautéed crayfish.
Falksalt from Sweden; enormous, crumbly flakes and a clean, sea-sweet salty taste. Jars of golden cloudberry jam.
But I can’t wait to exit the back door into the outdoor market. Kauppatori sprawls lazily along the harbor and at least one gentleman is selling onions and potatoes from his parasol-shaded boat. The sun is strong and most stands are covered by red umbrellas which cast a lurid glow over produce so fresh from the farm that it makes me ache for a kitchen:
Piles of dazzling green peas, swiftly scooped and measured in tall tin cans. We shell and pop them into our mouths as we walk.
Local strawberries, dripping with luscious juice, so fragile that we have to eat them right on the spot. The extra summer sunlight intensifies their crimson hue--there are only four hours of darkness in summer.
Bunches of green onions, feathery dill, and electric orange carrots. Small cauliflowers.
Lots of tiny freshly dug potatoes, crumbly earth still clinging to their golden skins.
A bewitching dark-haired girl scoops chunks of black licorice into candy-colored red and black bags. Finish licorice has a sweetly aromatic, almost earthy taste. It comes salted or not--and since I love salt, I have a new craving for salmiakki.
At lunchtime, salmon steaks and potatoes the size of ping pong balls sizzle on oily planchas or grill pans. The crusty golden potatoes topped with garlicky sour cream are irresistible. All the cooks are offering tastes, especially of the tiny crisply fried fish. In a huge pan, there is an enormous seafood paella piled with mounds of tiny shrimp, salmon, red peppers, mussels and more.
Deeper into the market, we come upon sleek reindeer pelts and soft furs, bright wool sweaters and tables of homemade jewelry, including an irridescent shell strung on a thin black leather thong.
That evening, as we sail out of Helsinki’s harbor, the chef delivers a plate of delicacies from the morning’s haul: We fall upon slices of creamy cow’s milk cheese topped with spoonfuls of golden cloudberry jam, thin slices of dark red reindeer meat, salty and smoky, and a platter of tangy moose salami strewn with red currants.
But the fresh peas and strawberries are only a memory.