Rømmegrøt: Norwegian Sour Cream Pudding
My house looked a bit like this, this morning. The usual daily rhythms: oil pulling, warm cup of broth, lighting a candle. Creating a sense of peace and calm for children through rhythm. It also looked like me deciding that I needed to make Rømmegrøt. Instead of the usual winter porridge, I boldly announced I had a special treat for everyone today.
I pretended to ignore the sideways glances. The knowingness that Mum was in one “those moods”.
Of course, I didn’t have half the ingredients, and I had never made Rømmegrøt before. It was just a distant memory of a time before the rest of the world caught up to Norwegian inflation, when I paid $70AUD for 2 coffees and 2 bowls of this sour milky pudding at the Oslo Ski Jump cafe.
I don’t really remember liking it much then either.
But I didn’t have an appreciation for Scandinavian food culture then. It all felt very homogenous and “western” from the previous years of adventurous early 20’s travel throughout Asia.
It was also at that turning point of dairy, gluten, sugar becoming the enemy, a few years prior to my Raw Vegan phase in San Franscisco.
It’s a Truth that food and memories are interwoven.
The nourishing of our life-force, our culture and our ancestry.
I knew, today, that after a few days of intense focus on a project I’ve been working on, that I needed something to break the circuit. I needed to express my creativity and feel and taste something different. To re-write the urgency and density of trying to finish said project. Instead, giving myself permission to do something I’ve always wanted to do.
Plus I had some raw Goats Milk that had been souring in the fridge for some time I needed to use up.
I’ve never seen a recipe for Rømmegrøt with goats milk, by the way.
I was just sure that there must be one, and that I knew enough about the bacterial alchemy of milk to complete the simultaneous equation.
My sweet husband was reluctantly on standby because he knows that I am notorious for burning things that require delicacy and consistent focus - like stirring liquid on heat.
Success. I served it up and we sat down to enjoy a hearty warming breakfast together at the table.
The children, in their delightful innocence, shared with me how “they really liked it, but they didn’t like how it tasted”.
My husband acknowledged how great the sugar was on top.
We don’t really do sugar on top, so that wasn’t a challenging win.
So I sat there, somewhat alone in essence, taking mouthfuls transcending to another time, another world. Transcending time to relive my Viking heritage. The fresh air of fjords, the dampness of wooden cabins and the comforting warmth and regality of fresh milk from hand-milked animals.
After consuming about half of the dish, I realised that the soured goats milk was just too strong for me.
I didn’t want to eat my Rømmegrøt.
No one did.
Perhaps if I’d just used “normal” cream and milk, it would be comforted us differently.
I’d really love to adjust my palette to the Old Ways. Where soured curds and whey and fermented fish and everything rotten was actually as much a delicacy as medicine. I keep trying.
To return to the purity of being uncorrupted by the world of commercialised processing and globalised instant access to everything.
Sometimes I’d just love to walk into a grocery store and NOT see asparagus in the vegetable section. Reserving it for the few special weeks it grows at the beginning of spring.
Learning to eat as our ancestors did. Slowly. Seasonally.
I’m talking about more than just shopping at Farmers Markets.
I’m talking about a life so simple that there is nothing else to do, except farm, cook, eat, love, sing, share, prepare and celebrate.
Maybe we can leave out the war, famine and early deaths part.
Making Rømmegrøt this morning was a way for me to reconnect to that vision.
It was a way for me to become a pure channel, once more.
For I cannot write, I cannot work, I cannot create when I am cluttered.
My kitchen is in chaos with sticky pots and spoons, my tastebuds are disappointed, my gut might have something to say later, my husband is confused.
But I needed this.
Becoming a pure channel, to me, sometimes looks like sitting in a sweat lodge, meditation or a shamanic release ceremony.
Sometimes (this one time anyway) it looks like making Rømmegrøt.