Finnish food

Hi,

Finnish food is a vast subject. Just few thoughts on food.  

The Finns are spoilt for choice and eat well.

As from 1948  we have had free school meals. From 1960's school meals improved from the earlier years and  legislation guarantees a well balanced meal for all pre-primary and basic education children also for some children in  higher secondary education. In the total app.900 000 children enjoy free school meal every day.it is important to maintain pupils' health and energy levels to do school work  as a school lunch makes a third of a child's daily food intake. 30% of schools can offer also an afternoon snack.

At early age children learn to eat different types of food and get familiar with various ingredients ie. vegetables, fruit, fish, meat etc. Special diets are taken into account when needed.

Finnish  food has both eastern (Russia) and western (Sweden) influence. Nowadays differences are not so distinct but regional food variations still exist. However chefs will provide new recipes and fusion foods using traditional ingredients.

Finnish food is safe and healthy:super food. Our forests are full of berries and mushrooms and they are still picked every autumn. Thousands of lakes and rivers ( 188 000 ) are full of fish but we also enrich our diets with sea fish.

There are hundreds of milk product variations : yoghurts, piima/sour milk, viili, rahka/quirk etc. these products also come gluten-free, fat-free, lactose-free. All cheese producers have variety of low fat cheeses from 5% to 17% and they are still very tasty cheese experiences.

For example 
http://www.valio.fi/tuotteet/valio/ and http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Suomen_juustoloista

Interesting food
http://www.lappires.com/ and http://www.wanhamestari.fi/kuopio-muikkuravintola-sampo

I must mention our passion for coffee with my food notes. Finland was a part of Sweden in 1720 when we had first coffee in western areas of Finland. C. F. Blomberg opened the first Finnish coffee roasting business in Helsinki  1883 in small scale.The first industrial coffee roasting was started by Gustav Paulig 1904.With a coffee drinking habit baking became important : there is a saying that you need to have at least 7 different cakes, biscuits and buns on a coffee table  for your guests. Today we Finns  drink 10 kg of coffee per person /year but maybe 7 cakes & buns are not so important anymore. We value  good quality filter coffee, instant coffee is not so popular. We used to vote for a special  coffee symbol Paula-lady.

http://www.paulig.fi/paula

On positive notes: