Vegetarian recipes from Norway

Meatless Norwegian cooking shows itself first in its starches and its dairy. Potato and barley long carried the meals, butter and cream supply the fat, and cardamom, cinnamon and pearl sugar give the sweet side its northern signature. Griddle bread is the oldest example: lefse is made from mashed potato, flour and butter, rolled very thin and baked dry on a hot plate, then kept folded for days.

Meals follow a fixed rhythm in which the afternoon coffee matters as much as dinner, and that is where the baking belongs. Skolebrod, a cardamom bun with a well of pastry cream and a rim of coconut, was sold in neighbourhood bakeries for the end of the school day. Spoon desserts lean on local fruit: tilslorte bondepiker alternates apple compote, breadcrumbs toasted in butter and whipped cream, layered in a glass with no baking at all.