The Susanne

I’m quite excited about the upcom­ing hol­i­day 17. May. It’s the Nor­we­gian Con­sti­tu­tion day, cel­eb­rat­ing the day in 1814 when a con­greg­a­tion of the finest men of our nation com­pleted our con­sti­tu­tion and declared our inde­pend­ence from Den­mark. Of course, we were to be sub­jug­ated to Sweden for another ninety-​one years before finally achiev­ing com­plete inde­pend­ence in 1905. But we still cel­eb­rate 17. May as the most import­ant date in our nation’s his­tory. The day is tra­di­tion­ally cel­eb­rated with every­one dressed up in their best, many wear­ing folk dress, all gath­er­ing in the streets to par­take of or watch the many 17. May parades.

The best known and prob­ably most endeared parades are of course the children’s parades. The Nor­we­gian poet Henrik Werge­land fathered the idea of the national day being the day of our nation’s chil­dren. He also penned the song ‘Vi ere en nasjon vi med’ (lit­er­ally trans­lated ‘we are a nation, we also’) which is sung by chil­dren in the parade. The parades are fron­ted by march­ing bands play­ing this and other songs such as the national anthem, with school chil­dren fol­low­ing, singing, shout­ing ‘HURRA’ and waving flags. It is truly a sight. In Oslo the children’s parade fin­ishes out­side the royal castle where the royal family gath­ers on the bal­cony, for the people’s view­ing pleasure.

At Eids­voll, where the con­sti­tu­tion was cre­ated, there is also a spe­cial pro­gramme on each 17. May. The set­ting is per­fect for the cel­eb­ra­tions on this day: the house where it all took place making a mag­ni­fi­cent back­drop whilst the people gather in the grounds for speeches, music and games for the chil­dren. This is the 17. May I grew up with. We would get up early, gather at my school and then pro­ceed to the start­ing place for the parade before, after an excru­ci­at­ingly long wait, the parade would get under way and finally we’d end up at Eids­vollbygnin­gen where our par­ents awaited us, cheer­ing, their pock­ets con­tain­ing money for the hot dogs and ice cream we so longed for. 17. May is the one day a year when chil­dren can eat all the ice cream and all the hot dogs they like.

This year, I’m host­ing my first 17. May break­fast. The Boy­friend and I decided on a quieter and less stress­ful route this year, no stu­dent party and no train ride to the Nation’s cradle which is where my par­ents live and is the scene of my child­hood. Instead we’re having The Boyfriend’s brother over for break­fast early in the morn­ing and then we’ll head down town to see the children’s parade and try to get a glimpse of the King.

As far as I’m con­cerned, I don’t mind going the whole day without so much as a mouth­ful of ice cream or hot dog. What I could never do without on this day though, is salmon. Smoked salmon and gravlaks. Which dir­ectly trans­lates to dug salmon or dig-​salmon. It has noth­ing to do with dig­ging though: gravlaks is simply fresh salmon mar­in­ated in a mix­ture of salt, sugar, fresh dill and some cognac for three-​four days. Many people con­fuse gravlaks with the very different-​tasting rak­fisk. Whilst gravlaks is fresh salmon and deli­ciously tast­ing, rak­fisk on the other hand is fer­men­ted fish. Some do say that gravlaks is basic­ally the same product, having simply gone through a quicker pro­cess not includ­ing micro-​organisms and that the final result is much the same; but I do not agree with this com­par­ison at all. To me, there is a clear dis­tinc­tion between the fla­vours and also, there is of course a vast dif­fer­ence between decom­pos­ing fish and fresh fish. And just to make it clear: no one will be served rak­fisk at my table. Ever.

Today, my pas­sion for improv cook­ing has lead me to mar­in­ate half a side of smoked salmon. Yes, it might be super­flu­ous, as the fish is already ‘prepared’, it might not turn out well at all, but I’d quite like to see the result anyway. I made the mar­in­ade using the usual ingredi­ents: salt, sugar, pepper and heaps of fresh dill. As we don’t have cognac in the house (The Boy­friend is more of a whisky drinker) I poured a shot of whisky over my little exper­i­ment instead. I’m excited to see the result on Sat­urday: I’m sure I’ll eat it even if it doesn’t taste great con­sid­er­ing the amount of work I have ahead of me in the days to come. The salmon must be turned over sev­eral times a day, and prefer­ably left out of the refri­ger­ator for a few hours each day in order for the fla­vours to prop­erly impreg­nate the fish.

Excited? Oh yes, I should think so!