Elizabethian Essays: D is for Dining

Dining with our Faroese friends has taught me a lot about their traditions. As with most cultures, a good part of their social life revolves around food.

The Faroese are great cooks!! They are also very hospitable and each time we are visiting those beautiful islands we receive countless invitations. It is often for the main meal, but also for lunch or supper (and sometimes breakfast, when our other meals are all booked) and innumerable times for coffee in the evenings, which includes many scrumptious desserts.

When we are invited out, the tables are always set as for a king and queen. Each lady has 3-4 sets of dishes which make for lots of variety. They often choose a set at a certain store, and receive a piece from friends and family for birthdays or Christmas for a few years until the set is complete. Then it will soon be time to begin a new collection.

We have wonderful memories of countless evenings spent around the dinner table with dear friends followed by a few more hours at the coffee table in the living room. Hospitality is just second nature to our Faroese friends and family.

Every Day Cuisine

My first trip to the Faroes we enjoyed fish 6 days a week. Boiled potatoes (with skins on) accompanied each meal (365 days a year). No veggies or drinks. It was so easy to set the table - plates, forks and knives for each person - done!

As with all traditions things continue to change though and I am sure some young people wouldn't recognize the following, but my first few months in the Faroes, you could count on the meals basically being like this -

Monday - Saturday

7:30 - Breakfast- rye bread with rhubarb jam along with a cup of tea

10:00 - Coffee with rolls, cheese and jam, or Danish roll

12:20 - (that is when the news came on and everyone ate the main meal listening to the news)

boiled potatoes

fish - in a variety of different ways as I shared in
'L - Lots of Fish'

coffee - a cookie or two

3:00 Tea with buns and cheese - or a piece of cake

6:00 - Supper - rye bread with dried sheep meat, plus a variety of other things found in your fridge - meat slices, cheese, tuna salad, cucumber, tomatoes, boiled eggs, picked mackerel, etc. and don't forget the rhubarb jam 'J is for Jam'. Tea goes along with this meal.

10:00 - Coffee with desserts

Sunday was unique -

Breakfast - coffee cake

1:00 - Roast of lamb with gravy, boiled potatoes and veggies

3:00 - Dessert around the living room coffee table

8:00 - Supper (church was from 6:00-7:30) - same as the rest of the week

This every day experience represents my in-laws home, although most homes during that era were pretty much the same.

Over the years the younger generation has gradually changed the tradition and there are lots of surprises today. Now we even see Chinese, Mexican and Italian frozen meals in the grocery stores.

When we are invited out for Sunday dinner though, I am still willing to bet 99.9% that it will be roast lamb with all the trimmings. Ragnar especially continues to enjoy every bite of it.

Besides the regular fish, mutton and whale meat we also enjoy puffins in the fall.

Another yummy meal - very tender meat, usually stuffed with 'raisin cake dough' and then boiled.

A family of 4 could eat up to 8-10 of them a meal.

CHRISTMAS

Christmas celebrations include 3 huge meals -

24th - supper - usually the main Christmas meal - goose or duck with gravy, boiled potatoes (but the cook peels them), plus sugared potatoes and veggies.

Rice pudding is the standard dessert. The cook serves it in small bowls with an almond hidden in one. Someone else passes them out and the lucky person who gets the almond wins a price.

25th - (1st Christmas Day) Dinner - Roast Leg of Lamb with all the trimmings

26th - (2nd Christmas Day) Dinner - Roast aged Lamb. I think anyone in Europe (and maybe beyond) can smell it cooking - it is strong - and I mean STRONG!!

New Year's Eve Feast