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Norwegian Foodways

Norsk mat

National

The food of a country that is mostly mountain, forest and water, with a coastline longer than the equator and under three per cent of its land arable. Fish above all โ€” cod dried and salted, herring, salmon and trout; sheep and goats on ground that grows nothing else; dairy from the seter summer farms, including whey cheeses made nowhere else; barley and oats before wheat; potatoes since about 1800; game; berries from the mountain and the bog; and a preservation tradition โ€” drying, salting, smoking, curing, fermenting โ€” that is the direct answer to the climate.

Atlas โ€” where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Norwegians community documented

Languages: Norwegian (Bokmรฅl), Norwegian (Nynorsk)

What is recorded

  • Norwegian foodways are recorded as a first-class national system within Scandinavian and then Nordic foodways. Sรกmi foodways are a separate root and Kven foodways a distinct minority system; neither is modelled as a branch of Norwegian foodways. documented
  • Salmon, lutefisk and New Nordic cooking are each one part of Norwegian foodways and none is Norwegian food as such. Under three per cent of Norway is arable and the everyday historical kitchen was fish, sheep, dairy, barley and โ€” after about 1800 โ€” potatoes. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • part of Scandinavian Foodways documented
  • related to British Foodways documented

    North Sea fish, timber and shipping trade, and the Scottish and Orkney connections of the south and west coast.

  • related to Danish Foodways documented

    Denmark-Norway was one state from 1380 to 1814, Danish was Norwayโ€™s written language throughout, and Bokmรฅl descends from it.

  • related to Faroese Foodways documented

    The Faroes were settled from Norway and under Norwegian rule from 1035; the sheep, dried fish and language relationships all run this way.

  • related to Finnish Foodways documented

    Through the Kven communities of the north and the long border. โš  FINLAND IS NORDIC AND NOT SCANDINAVIAN.

  • related to German Foodways documented

    The Hanseatic Kontor at Bryggen ran the stockfish trade for four centuries.

  • related to Icelandic Foodways documented

    Iceland was settled from Norway and was under Norwegian and then Danish-Norwegian rule; the dried fish, sheep and whey traditions are genuinely cognate.

  • related to Swedish Foodways documented

    A union from 1814 to 1905 and the longest land border in the region.

  • related to Sรกmi Foodways documented

    Contact and coexistence across the north, with a documented history of Norwegianisation policy โ€” NOT containment. Sรกmi foodways are a root here.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • influenced Hanseatic Trade Foodways documented

    The Bergen stockfish trade is among the best-documented food-trade relationships in northern Europe.

  • originates from Norwegian-American Foodways documented
  • related to Danish Foodways documented

    Denmark-Norway was one state from 1380 to 1814; Danish was the written language of Norway throughout and the baking traditions are close.

  • related to Faroese Foodways documented

    Settled from Norway and under Norwegian rule from 1035.

  • related to Historical Norse Foodways documented
  • related to Icelandic Foodways documented

    Settlement and North Atlantic fisheries history; Icelandic cuisine is Nordic, not Scandinavian.

  • related to North Atlantic Foodways documented
  • related to Scottish Foodways documented

    North Sea trade, the herring fishery and the Northern Isles. โš  Scotland is not a Scandinavian country.

  • related to Swedish Foodways documented

    A union from 1814 to 1905, a long land border, and Jรคmtland and Hรคrjedalen Norwegian until 1645.

Regional cuisines

Dishes

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.