Sour Cream Porridge and Norwegian Volcanoes

Norwegian Breakfast

SOUR CREAM PORRIDGE
(Rømmegrøt)

INGREDIENTS

2 cups sour cream
½ cup flour, wheat flour, or semolina (½ cup more later)
½ cup flour, wheat flour, or semolina
3½ cups warm milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
2 tablespoon melted butter

Serves 5. Takes 35 minutes.

* = This was part one to pin down. Outside of Scandinavia, most people would eat it for breakfast. It is mostly eaten in Norway as part of a day-long Christmas feast. It’s usually served with cured meats.

PREPARATION

Add sour cream to pot. Simmer at low-medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir frequently. Sprinkle ½ cup flour onto sour cream. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir constantly. Use shallow spoon to skim off butter fat as it comes to the surface. Reserve butter fat. Add ½ cup flour. Stir constantly.

Slowly whisk in milk. Cook at medium heat for 10 minutes or until porridge thickens. Use whisk constantly to prevent lumps. Add salt. Stir enough to blend in salt. Add porridge to serving bowls. Ladle reserved butter fat and melted butter into bowls. Sprinkle bowls with cinnamon sugar.

TIDBITS

1) Just change the cinnamon sugar streaks in the above photo to red and you’ll see a lava flow through white rock. Culinary anthropologists believe this porridge reminds Norwegians of the days when their country was rife with active volcanoes. Indeed, culinary historians, a lively bunch if there has been one, say that constant lava flows made farming impossible. This left plundering foreign lands for precious metals and jewelry the only way to support themselves. Thus, the Vikings were born.

2) You might wonder why, until now, we’ve never heard of Norwegian volcanoes. That’s because Vikings didn’t adopt an alphabet for the entire populace, the Young Fouthrak runes, until 1100 AD. But the Norwegian volcanoes ceased erupting thirteen years earlier. And as our culinary historians are quick to point out, 1087 is the year of the last major Viking raid. Now you know. Volcanoes.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.