Diaspora
Dinners

Signe Johansen

Hot-Smoked Trout, Dill-Butter Potatoes and Quick-Pickle Cucumber

As summer winds down, I find myself drawn to the smoked and cured flavours of the food I grew up eating in Norway, especially the simple, understated dishes my grandparents prepared when we all decamped to their summer fruit farm.

Nestled in a steep valley close to the western fjords, a river separated the prized Gravenstein apple orchard from the rest of the property. We spent long midsummer days hiking, swimming in the nearby fjord, and picking both wild and cultivated berries as each variety came into season.

Boredom was not an option. If we weren’t active outdoors, or helping my farfar (paternal grandfather) Julius sell or barter berries during their prime, we were conscripted into the weeks-long pickling and preserving marathon as commanded by Oddny, my farmor (paternal grandmother) who worried about developing scurvy in midwinter, long after the risk of it ceased to be a problem in Norway.