Hello!
The international exchange students at RAMK in the spring term 2011 have co-created this "guide" for future exchange students coming to RAMK, LUC, Lapland or anywhere in Finland. This team task was part of the course "Intercultural Communication in Finland".
The blog posts contain information and students' own experiences in living, studying and working in Finland. There's also useful information about communicating with the Finns and cultural backgrounds of the Finns.
I hope this blog will help you to prepare for your exchange period.
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Apr 7, 2011
Chef Evaluating Finnish Food
Hi,
I would like to share this video with you. It shows world famous chef Gordon Ramsay tasting typical Finnish dishes.
But please, don't take him too seriously... :)
Bon Appetite!
Tomas
Typical Finnish Objects
Hi,
here you can find some information about some typical Finnish objects you can find in Finland.
Sami knife
When you are in Finland, you can notice, that there are some typical objects that you can’t find anywhere else. One of them is the typical Sami Knife (Leuku in Finnish, stuorniibi ("big knife") in Sami).
The blade of the Sami knife is straight, strong and 25 to 40 cm long. Some of them may be considered to be more like a machete
than a knife. But there is a reason for it. Sami knife is not only for cutting, but also for chopping wood and crashing bones of animals. Therefore is necessary for the knife to be as strong and sharp as possible. The handle is usually made of birch wood in order to provide better grip in the snowy conditions.
There is also small Sami knife, which is used mostly for carving, marking the reindeer, opening small animals… Sami people usually use both of the knives.
But before you storm in the shop to buy a big knife, please remember, that carrying knife in public is prohibited. You need to get permission for that or have a job related reason to do so. But they make a great souvenir, there is no doubt about that.
Guksi
Guksi (or Finnish: kuksa; Swedish: kåsa), is a traditional work of Sami duodji, it is a type of drinking cup made by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia from carved birch burl.
The burl is contoured to a rough shape, carefully dried to prevent the wood from cracking, and then formed in accordance with the local traditions. Originally guksi were widely used in Arctic areas as a personal drinking cup; a well-made guksi would last a lifetime.
Today, a traditional guksi is difficult to find outside northern Scandinavia, partly because burls are seldom harvested in modern mechanized forestry. With the introduction of glass, ceramic and metal drinking ware, the skill of making such duodji artwork has become a pastime skill rather than the essential one as it was in the past.
The kuksa as a duodji artwork has also been a target of cultural appropriation as non-Sami artists replicate the work as a souvenir item.
Guksi was traditionally only rinsed with clean water and dried with a cloth after use. No detergents are used, since many people believe that it will damage a guksi
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki. Nokia is engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices (приборы) and in converging Internet and communications industries. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones.
Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in many countries throughout the world.
In 1865 Frederic Idesman in Tampere founded a small paper factory.
In 1898, Eduard Polón founded Finnish Rubber Works, manufacturer of galoshes and other rubber products, which later became Nokia's rubber business.
In 1912, Arvid Wickström founded Finnish Cable Works, producer of telephone, telegraph and electrical cables and the foundation of Nokia's cable and electronics businesses.
In 1967 was official merger of companies to form a new industrial conglomerate. And today
Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland.
In 1992 was created a slogan of the company “Connecting people”
References
Eating at school cafeteria
Hi,
Traditional Finnish food may seem a bit awkward for most of the people, but there is no need to worry. The food you will probably be eating most of the time is not that strange. I am talking about the food in school cafeteria. The restaurants are located in every campus.
Food at the Amica restaurants is more similar to traditional European cuisine than to the Finnish national cuisine.
Most of the meals are consisting of sauce, minced meat accompanied by potatoes or rice. Popular kinds of meat are pork, beef and chicken. The sauces are most likely to be pepper or curry flavored.
Food at Amica felt a bit tasteless for me at first. Maybe it is because Czech food has very strong tastes most of the time. Therefore it took me some time to get used to it. And now I can’t complain… the food is great. I would like to point out that this is my opinion, you might be used to some other set of tastes.
Since most of the students have a budget to stick to, the price of the lunch in Amica is very good opportunity to get fed for a reasonable price. With the student card, the price of the meal is 2.50 € and includes bread with spreads, side salad, drink and either main dish, salad or soup. All of the restaurants are self-service, so you can take as much as you want.
As an additional service, the restaurants sell candy, desserts, salads, cold drinks, tea and coffee.
I hope that you will enjoy the school cafeterias as much as I do.
Bon Appetite!
Tomas
Traditional Finnish Food
Hello future exchange students.
We are Tomas from Czech Republic, Olga from Russia and Rita from Spain and we would like to introduce you to some examples of Finnish food and some typical Finnish objects.
We hope that you will find this information very usefull for living in Finland. So, let's start with the traditional dishes !
Karelian pastries
One of the typical Finnish dishes is the Karelian pie. As the name suggests, it originates from the south-eastern part of Finland, kn
own as Karelia. It is widely spread all over Finland these days.
The crust is made of wheat or rye. The typical fillings are potatoes, rice and barley. On the top you can find basically everything. The most popular ingredients are eggs, ham, cheese, reindeer meat, shrimp…
And the most important thing: It tastes great :)
Fazer
I think that everyone has already heard this name. And if not, then you clearly are not a chocolate fan.
But little bit about the company first. The Fazer Company was founded in 1891 by Karl Fazer. More than a company it was French-Russian sweet-shop in central Helsinki. These days it has thousands of employees in Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK and Russia. And the products are famous all around the world.
The most famous product is of course the chocolate in the blue wrap. The other products are Candyking candy, bread and Fazer Cafés. And you might be surprised, but Fazer also runs the chain of Amica restaurants in various schools and workplaces, so you will probably visit them very soon after your departure to Finland. You can find more about Amica in the separate article.
Minttu
Minttu liqueur is a crystal clear peppermint liqueur produced in Turku by Vin & Sprit.
The product is marketed for the Finnish market and as such bears a noticeably Finnish name, but it is also popular in Norway, Sweden and other Nordic countries. It has a strong, crisp taste and scent of peppermint. Taste is quite similar to Crème de menthe, but appearance is more like vodka. Minttu is in 40% and 50% alcohol by volume.
Most common ways to enjoy Minttu are to drink it on the rocks, mixed with tonic or on a hot drink. Hot chocolate with Minttu is a common treat in Scandinavian ski bistros.
Salmiakki
Salty liquorices, salmiak or salmiakki is a variety of liquorices that contains a relatively large amount of ammonium chloride ("salmiac") in addition to the liquorices root extract, sugar and starch or gum Arabic that constitute regular liquorices. Ammonium chloride has a spicy taste that vaguely resembles that of sodium chloride (table salt). However, salty liquorices do not necessarily contain any sodium. Although some types of regular liquorices can also contain a small amount of ammonium chloride, salty liquorices can contain up to about 8 percent of ammonium chloride. Moreover, the salty taste is typically less masked by a high sugar content compared to regular liquorices.
Salty liquorices candies are almost always black or very dark brown and can range from very soft to very hard and may be brittle. The other colors used are white and variants of grey. Carbon black is used as a food coloring agent in these candies.
The Latin term for ammonium chloride is salt ammoniac, a term that has also been used in English. In Finnish, the candies are usually called salmiakki, although this can also refer to other products containing ammonium chloride. The terms salmiakkimakeinen (salmiac candy) or salmiakkilakritsi (salmiac liquorices) are also sometimes used. For pure ammonium chloride, the term raakasalmiakki (raaka = raw) can be used, if necessary.
Salmiakki was once a trade name of Fazer, but quickly became a generalized trademark like nylon. The canonical shape for Finnish salmiakki candies is a black diamond-shaped lozenge. This diamond shape is so typical that in Finnish, the word "salmiakki" can sometimes refer to this shape instead of the candy. For example, Finnish Defense Forces reserve officer students rank insignia are known as "salmiakki"s for their distinctive shape. However, especially in other countries, different shapes are used.
Mämmi
Is a traditional Finnish Easter dessert. The Swedish language name for it is memma. Mämmi is made from water, rye flour and powdered rye malt, seasoned with dark molasses, salt and dried, powdered Seville orange peel. The mixture is then allowed to go through a slow, natural sweetening process before being baked in an oven until set. Preparation takes many hours, and after baking the mämmi is stored chilled for 3 to 4 days before being ready to eat. Mämmi was traditionally stored in small bowls made of birch bark called tuokkonen or rove. Finnish packaging still prints birch bark-like texture on the carton boxes.
Generally mämmi is eaten cold with cream and sugar, vanilla sauce or vanilla ice-cream. It is also eaten spread on top of a slice of bread. There is a Finnish society for mämmi founded by Ahmed Ladarsi, the former chef at the Italian Embassy in Helsinki, who claims that there are around fifty recipes containing mämmi. There are a number of websites with recipes using mämmi most of which are in Finnish. Mämmi is also used as minor ingredient in a mämmi-beer by Laitilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas.
Mustamakkara
(literally black sausage) is a type of Finnish blood sausage traditionally eaten with lingo berry jam. It is nowadays available in many stores across Finland, but is held in the position of local delicacy and specialty of Tampere. Mustamakkara is at its best when bought and eaten fresh at market stalls, to which it is delivered hot in Styrofoam boxes from the factories directly after baking. A typical practice of reheating the sausage is to just fry it in a pan.
Mustamakkara is known to have been eaten as early as in the 16th century and was generally cooked over a small fire, in a hot cauldron or in an oven. Mustamakkara is made by mixing pork, pig blood, crushed rye and flour, after which it is stuffed into the intestines of an animal like most sausages. The two major producers of this food are Tapola and Savupojat.
When buying mustamakkara in the Tampere region it is customary to specify the amount of money to spend instead of weight, length or number of pieces. Often people also choose by simply pointing at the preferred piece. The shape and moisture of mustamakkara varies and by this means the buyer can get the piece best suiting his or her taste.
References
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