Brasserie Kaislaranta

As a child in Finland, my sister and I spent our summer holidays at my grandparents’ house in the country. These happy childhood memories of carefree hot summers, playing in the woods, cycling through the country lanes and swimming in the lakes, also set the foundations for my appreciation of fresh, locally grown food. 

The beautiful wooden house was built by my great grandfather and grandfather, and us children slept upstairs in the summer. One of my earliest memories is waking up early in the morning to a totally silent house. This was odd, as normally you could hear our grandmother pottering about in the kitchen downstairs, baking bread or doing other chores from 6am onwards. I left the room quietly to allow my sister to continue her sleep and walked to the main window upstairs, which was facing the lake. To my great relief, I saw my grandparents in the middle of the lake in their rowing boat, checking the fish nets they had set the previous day. The lake was calm and there was a fairytale like mist lingering on the surface of the water surrounding their boat. They were lucky that day, there were a few perch in the net that were made in to a delicious fish soup, which we ate for the next couple of days. 

I still remember the tasty fish soup where bits of fresh fish shared the milky broth with home grown new potatoes, butter, pepper and dill. As the fish head was left in for flavour, occasionally us children chased a detached fish eye in the bowl seeing who was brave enough to pop it in their mouth. As the youngest,  and a show-off, it was normally me.

When playing outside in the summer with my sister and cousin, we would often stop to pick some berries or vegetables for a snack: blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries, peas, carrots and anything that was ripe and ready to eat. This gave us a burst of energy to continue our games until our grandmother would call us in for some freshly baked cinnamon or ‘butter-eye’ buns and homemade berry squash. 

In the winter time, I remember the cellar shelves lined with jars of pickled cucumbers, beetroot and strawberry jam. The vegetables and fruit had been carefully picked and prepared by my grandmother during the summer months and the only preservatives used were sugar and/or vinegar and the jars were sealed with a wax disc under the lid. To this day I am still addicted to pickled cucumbers and beetroot and Rachel has mastered the flavours to match how I remember them. 

When the milk had gone past its best before -date, I knew good times were ahead, as this meant pancakes. Not wishing to waste any food, our grandmother used the milk to make small round pancakes stacked so high I was worried they would fall over. We would then cover them generously in her strawberry jam. Swimming in sticky, sweet,  strawberry juice were the biggest berries you’ll ever find  in a jar of jam. I remember wondering why adults, who were able to make a meal this delicious, wouldn’t choose to have it every day! 

It’s not until I was older when I realised that my grandparents, who lived through the second world war, didn't really need to fish, grow vegetables and fruit or bake their own bread anymore. By now Finland was an affluent society and they had relatively good pensions with no mortgage, rent or huge bills to pay. But, like for many of their generation, this was a way of life. Having got used to living frugally, they were not lulled into a false sense of security thinking no crisis could ever happen again. So they continued living their life self-sufficiently, giving them a purpose, a role and a sense of partnership. 

I guarantee people would pay good money for their food these days: tasty, organic, zero-waste and free from artificial preservatives.

These precious food memories have left me with a lasting appreciation of fresh, locally grown food. Whilst we live in a city and are not able to grow a lot, we do what we can. Last year we were able to use figs, herbs and edible flowers grown in our garden and we are excited to continue experimenting further. We buy locally grown food whenever possible and use authentic Nordic ingredients. (And I promise no fish eyes will be found in our salmon soup…)

I will be forever grateful to my grandparents for the unforgettable childhood summers. Whilst I took the food for granted at the time, I would now like to award three Michelin stars to their heavenly kitchen. 

Kiitos mummo ja vaari. 

Terry

(pictures 1,3 &4 courtesy of Virpi Hiltunen)