One For the Road August 2010, Horizons magazine

Food is allegedly the best way into a foreign culture. Peter Frost begs to differ.

I am not a joiner, of furniture, games or riots - it is not in my nature and if God had meant for me to be so, he would have given me a better arm and a steadier hand. As it is, my natural wrist action is about as useful as Gordon Ramsay at a Decency in the Kitchen conference.

Still, I believe fervently in joining the family of (well-fed) man, a great, nostalgic entirely Humanist 1950s Julie and Julia construct in which heaving family tables overflow with the recently baked goodness of the land’s bounty. Around the table, in a quasi-Italian peasant idyll, hundreds of freshly scrubbed, cotton-clad people gambol happily and bask in the wholesomeness of slow food, dappled sunlight and the love of a benevolent dictator named Mama. It is Good.

Realistically of course it is not Good. As you crisscross the globe in search of The Real Thing, the truth is that local cuisine should best be approached with caution and an exit strategy. Haggis. Sauerkraut. Sautéed gibbon, flayed Weimaraner, boiled cabbage. The Brussel sprout is hardly worth travelling 4000 kilometres for, yet that’s what you’ll end up with should you find yourself tucking into a traditional Belgian meal of Witlof, the guest of a doily-loving knickknack collector delighted at your innocent request for “something traditional, please.”

Undeterred by my increasingly long list of near-death culinary experiences (rat in chili sauce in Thailand, green ants in Australia, tarantula in Malaysia, fried crickets in the Philippines and the best of all, durian fruit in Malaysia), I headed to Scandinavia, to smile at the fjords, buy some thin pale furniture and partake in a little harmless reindeer stew, seasoned with potatoes and a friendly veggie mix. My first stop was Norway, where I hopped off the good ship Sea Cloud II at Stavanger fjord and headed into the wild north. In the small village of Tinn, Floki the local fisher picked me up from my inn and took me off to his place, a fairytale stave-like home, for a taste of real Norway. I now fully understand why the Vikings ran riot over much of Europe – one sniff of raake orret would have been enough to send boiled cabbage-loving Osric fleeing for the safety of his native Sussex. In a nutshell, raake orret is rotten trout, served on bread made from yellow peas washed down with 90 percent proof witblitz. The trick, apparently, is to avoid the botulism threat.

A few days later I crossed into Sweden, and, fed up with the burger joints of bigger towns, opted for the Lapp village of Junosuando, close to the famed Ice Hotel at Kiruna and known for its organic holidays. The nice chap named Love (pronounced Loaf) at the Arctic retreat listened to my fast food moanings, nodded sagely and disappeared into the kitchen. He emerged with a small tin and bade me follow him. Outside he headed for the stream, and with a deft tug, opened the tin. Underwater. Ploof. Let me say here that I am a huge Abba fan, think the Volvo XC60 is glorious and was prepared to love Love’s fare. But I am also aware that the olfactory sense is the strongest. Months-old, dead, fermented herring so potent that it explodes on opening – underwater - was more than my philanthropic side could allow. Cultural relations soured, along with the surströmming’s "gräddfil", the traditional curded cream it is served with. A week later, sat in a Southampton bedsit, I have never been so glad in my life to see baked beans on toast.