Varg Veum

No discussion of Bergen can be concluded with at least a fleeting mention of Varg Veum. 

Varg Veum is Norway's Philip Marlowe, the creation of Gunnar Staalesen, one of the current crop of Scandinavian mystery writers drawing attention. Veum's office is located on Strandkien in Bergen; indeed, his address is the same as our Bergen Hotel, the Strand. His statue reposes in front of the entrance where many visitors (including Jean Sue) repose also. And Veum drinks his favorite aquavit, Simers Taffel, at the hotel's bar, Femte I Andre, where I enjoyed the same quaff.

The bar's name is a bit of a word play, the Norwegian version of Abbott and Costello's Who's On First. When we first stayed at the hotel 15 years ago it was located on the fifth floor. With The Strand's remodeling, the bar is now on the second floor. In translation the bar's name would be Fifth on Second. The bar includes a fake door marked as the office of Varg Veum.

Veum's detective exploits frequently center around children, since before taking up private eyeing he was a child welfare worker. (He was asked to leave because he was too inquisitive in investigating the causes of his charges' situations.) Only two of the novels in the series are available in English translation (list them here), and they are hard to come by; I ordered one in advance of the trip from amazon.uk, and purchased another at the Norli bookstore chain in Norway.

We learned about Veum last fall through the International Mysteries series broadcast by one of the minor public television stations in Philadelphia, WYBE. (The series is distributed by mHz Worldview network and also includes films featuring Sweden's Wallendar, France's Maigret, as well as detectives from Germny and Italy. This past week the only four Veum films made have been rebroadcast at 9 p.m.; tonight it's The Woman in the Refrigerator).

Fenalår: Better Than Prosciutto If You Like Lamb (I Do)

Writing about the supermarkets reminds me of a food stop I made in Oslo to a small shop near Radhuset: Fenaknoken.

The shop, which I discovered on our long weekend in Oslo in March 2009, is owned and operated by a father-son team, Gudbrand and Eirik Bræk (the photo was taken during that visit).

Upon entering, the nose is suddenly aware that this is a temple to cured meats: the odor of salted, cured and smoked fat and protein lets one know that this is not a store for the faint of heart. Hanging from the rafters are scores of meat parts, primarily lamb and pork ribs, and lamb legs. Gudbrand is quick to offer tastes, even to the casual shopper who insist he’s “just looking”. Ask where the meat you tasted comes from, and he lifts up an entire cured leg of lamb, with the shank pointed upwards. This, he says, is Norway. (And a leg of lamb does follow the contours of this Scandinavian land.

The Braek’s are proud to offer what they consider the best of artisinal cured meats to be found in Norway. Although they do not do their own curing, Eirik cooks fresh meats, including carbonnade (basically, meat loaf) and roast reindeer, which is as rosy and flavorful is a good roast beef. When I stopped by during our Oslo visit this year Gudbrand offered a taste of smoked whale: not high on my list, but it would be an interesting addition to any charcuterie plate.

But it’s the salamis (I tasted a goat salami), sausages (pølse), and cured meats that star. Just as on my previous visit, I walked out of the store with some fenalår, cured lamb leg served boneless and thinly sliced, a sort of lamb prosciutto, only slightly drier and smokier. It’s meant for out of hand eating, or perhaps over a single thin slice of hearty bread. A 50-gram purchase set me back 38 kroner, or about $6 for a little less than two ounces, or roughly $50/pound.

Fenalår can be found in any supermarket, pre-packaged and vacuum sealed. It's pretty good, too. But what the Bræk's offer is a superior product and not much more expensive that the version found at the Mega Coop.

Gudbrand also showed me a split smoked sheep head (the skull and meat, not brains or eyes), asking what I thought it was. My first guess, because of the indentations, was split beef heart. There’s not much to eat on it; an entire split head will serve two, he said.

Here's a lunch I made during our Lofoten stay from fenalår and reindeer salami purchased from Fenaknoken:

Supermarkets: The Key To The Norwegian Soul

When traveling abroad there are many ways to learn about local culture. Taking a stroll down a local supermarket's aisles can help you understand, just a little, about local tastes and preferences.

In Svolvaer I was a frequent visitor to the Mega Coop, Coop being a chain (I was told government-owned, but I'm not entirely sure about that) with varying size stores depending on the needs of the community. In Svolvaer (as in Rørvik and other towns I visited) it was located within the Amfi indoor shopping mall.

The importance of fish is obvious from that section of the supermarket. According to one of the desk clerks at Svinøya Rorbuer the Mega Coop is the best place to buy seafood, the only better being the fish sold by a vendor who irregularly appears at the town square.  I purchased half a kilo of rekke (shrimp) to cook in our cottage and can vouch for the quality.

While the fish department was staffed for special orders and personal service, all the meats were pre-packaged, including cold cuts. Likewise the potato, shrimp and similar salads came pre-packaged.

Although the depth of selection is limited (you won't find six brands of toilet paper) the breadth was more than adequate, the shelves stocked for every need.

After multiple trips, I wonder how much home cooking Norwegians do. The aisles were filled with convenience foods, including the Toro brand which Sonia Wallace said provides the base for an excellent fish soup. (I'm dubious about that.) Mexican appears to be big.

As in American supermarkets, beverages took up considerable space, especially beer. As previously noted, it's a lot less expensive to buy your beer at a retail store than at a bar or restaurant: you save about 50 percent. All the popular Norwegian and many some international brands were available.

For more interesting beers you have to visit Vinmonopolet, the state wine and liquor monopoly. (Just like Pennsylvania!) On its shelves I spied some great Belgian beers at about the same price I'd pay in Philadelphia (NOK 50, or about $8, for a Westmalle Tripple, as an example). Most of the inventory was devoted to wine, though there were plenty of distilled spirits, especially cognac. Not nearly as extensive was the selection of aquavits: maybe a dozen, just a few more than you'd find at many bars.

Edvard Grieg

Besides the remnants of Hanseatic traders Bergen's greatest claim to fame is that it was the home of composer Edvard Grieg. Though trained in and aspiring to the German tradition his music is clearly associated with Norway. There was even a Broadway musical in the 1940s based on his music, inexplicably titled Song of Norway.

You probably known at least some of his music, including selections from Peer Gynt Suite, especially Hall of the Mountain Kings.

On our previous trip to Bergen we obtained tickets to the Bergen Symphony Orchestra playing in central Bergen's large concert venue, Grieghallen. That program, however, did not include any Grieg compositions (it did feature a Shostakovich cello concert played by Michael Sanderling with the orchestra conducted by his father, Kurt.)

I rectified the lack of Grieg music from the previous trip by booking tickets for a recital at Troldhaugen, Grieg's home on a hill overlooking the water just outside the city. A 10-minute bus ride and five-minute walk from the parking area led to Troldhaugen's museum, the recital hall, and home.

The relatively new recital hall offered fine acoustics and clear sight lines, seating only a couple hundred music lovers. The tiered seating takes advantage of the hilltop location, with the large window behind the stage opening to the water and, at the edge of the hill, the small red cabin in which Grieg did much of his work. The roof of the hall is sod-covered, like many of the small outbuilding and homes you find in rural Norway.

At the Sunday evening program I attended (July 4) pianist Sandra Mogensen interposed pieces by Grieg and Ravel to mixed success. Some of the juxtapositions worked, others did not. But her mastery of the material and the instrument was evident, and even those combinations that did not work held interest.

Grieg's house, built in the 1880s, includes a grand piano in the parlor, which is occasionally used for very special recitals (with hard to get tickets). I commend to you Leif Ove Andsnes's records of Grieg's lyric pieces made in this room on this piano.

Fløybahnen

Fløybahnen, Bergen's funicular railway, is both a tourist attraction and means of commutation.

The paired cars (the red one goes up while the blue one comes down, and vice versa) traverse the 1,050-foot Mount Fløyen where nature trails, picnic tables and a restaurant await.The view, when weather permits, is wide and wonderful: all of central Bergen, the university district, Bergen's harbors, the hills, the inlets and nearby islands. Even in cloudy weather (so long as the clouds don't descend to the top of Fløyen) the view is worth the round trip.

The cars make three or four intermediate stops for commuters, since the hills surrounding central Bergen are residential zones. Like all funicular railways, the cars are paired, with the weight of each one providing balance on the funicular. Therefore, the intermediate stops are also paired: when the red car stops for passengers at the second station from the bottom, the blue car stops  at a station from the top. A sign along the wayside warns downhill travelers not to disembark when the first stop is made: when the car going uphill stops at the first intermediate tation, there's no corresponding station in the downhill direction.

The Fløybahnen is now on its fourth set of cars since it went into operation in 1918. The first generation lasted from the funicular's opening until 1954; the second generation cars from then until 1974; the third set until 1994 when the current set went into service.

Pølse Pørn

Norwegians love their hot dogs, known here as the pølse (POLE-sah). Here it's the lamb version, adorned with curry sauce (really a curry-flavored mayonnaise) and fried onions (the type you'd put on top of your Thanksgiving stringbean and cream of mushroom soup casserole). It was quite delicious.

I purchased this particular pølse at this red stand on Kong Oscars gate near Brygge in Bergen, which I first found 15 years ago on our initial visit to this city. The lamb hot dog was only the beginning of its selections. There's the cheese sausage with bacon, Jadgwurst wild game sausage, San Francisco sausage (apparently Bergensers think putting garlic and chili on a hot dog makes it San Franciscan), Smoked Bratwurst, Hot Chili sausage, the classic Frankfurter, Reindeer (flavored with juniper berries), Kabanossi (cayenne pepper and garlic, like the San Francisco, but a less emulsified grind), and Krakauer (nutmeg and garlic).

While they seem expensive at 45 kroner (about $7), they still represent good value. Each pølse weighs in at 150 grams -- more than five ounces, about the same as my favorite domestic dog, the five-to-a-pounder from Best Provisions of Newark.

Pølse are ubiquitous in Norway, though I didn't see any other stall devoted to the sausage during our month-long trip. Every "kiosk", however, offers them.

The kiosk is essentially a convenience store, with the big brands throughout Norway being Narvesen and 7-11. (Yes, 7-11: same logo design as back home.) Kiosks are essentially walk-in newstands, selling everything you'd expect as well as soft drinks and limited sandwich and fast foods. When I was in a pølse mood and not in central Bergen I went for Narvesen's bacon-wrapped dog.

Hanseatic Heritage

Bergen is a city by the sea. It traces its modern beginnings to the Hanseatic  traders from Germany who established a center for the export of furs, timber and fish to the rest of northern Europe. Many of their warehouses and residences remain standing today along Brygge, the Norwegian word for pier or wharf. (Just like Aker Brygge in Oslo.)

The Hanseatic structures are responsible for Bergen's categorization as a World Heritage Site. We skipped touring that area on this trip because we covered the area 15 years go on a private tour conducted by Jean Sue's friend Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, who was teaching once a month at the University of Bergen when he wasn't at his regular post at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

It should be no surprise that the local brew is Hansa beer.

It is also renowned for its fish soup. In most places, fish soup is a simple affair. Combine fish stock with milk and/or cream, sweat some onions and maybe carrots and/or celery and add them to the broth, maybe some potatoes, and finish by adding fish. Not so in Bergen, at least among the purists. The ingredients are the same for Bergen's fish soup, but everything from the selection of the proper fish to its cooking and serving can become an involved ritual. Just read Alan Davidson's account in his classic North Atlantic Seafood.