Little Pixy Boots on Eat: Christmas!

Omigod, it's nearly Christmas! Time for lots of candies, marzipan, cakes, chocs, good food, and general fattening of the animals. Yes, I'm referring to me growing to the size of a cow.

Ahhh... I can smell the snow on the ground and firewood burning in the chimneys of everyone's homes. Christmas in Norway is like the experience of Chinese New Year in Singapore - pockets get emptied, lots of kids get happy with the new clothes and gifts from adults, houses get pretty with festive decorations, and family members get together during this annual event. It is also a meat-eating event so how does a vegetarian like me survive?

Being a healthy vegetarian in Singapore and Norway has always been challenging for me. In Singapore, there was too much mock meat made of gluten and fried vegetarian dishes. In Norway, not many folks understand even what vegetarian means. "Oh, you mean you can't even take laks (salmon)?", some might ask.

Generally, most vegetarian choices in Norwegian restaurants are restricted to cheeses, soups, sour cream porridge, cakes and salads if you want to eat out.

Yummy organic carrot soup from a farm in the Akershus county

Luckily for me, my Viking Man is a perfect match for me when it comes to cuisine. He was raised a vegetarian since young and being a fellow vegetarian (I love the fact that he is a peace-loving, carrot-munching person like me), we often try to be adventurous and scout for the best vegetarian choices in town.

Fancy some sour cream porridge, anyone?

Generally the Indian and Vietnamese restaurants have the best choices for vegetarian food. Surprisingly, Ethiopian restaurants provide an exotic alternative with its Injera--the unleavened pancake-like, sourdough bread prepared today as it was a thousand years ago. The pizza places always have a vegetarian option too... but they often have the same ingredients consisting of mushroom, paprika, tomato, corn and olives.

I used to have two favourite Vietnamese restaurants in central Oslo, but now the one in Torggata ("market road" in Norwegian) has been replaced. But thankfully Saigon Lille Cafe is still around, with the best Vietnamese fried noodles ever! (I must apologise for not taking photos of the famous noodles - every time the dish arrives, I can't wait to dig in.)

Bring your hankies to wipe off your tears and sweat after a taste of the spicy food of Saigon.
FOTO: Bjørke Magnus Knutsen

Most of the time, hunting in the streets of Oslo for sustenance gets too much for us and we prefer to make our own healthy vegetarian food at home. Luckily for me, my mum has trained me on how to cook rice and fry an egg, or else I might not have survived in the cold (expensive) streets here.

During Christmas, my svigermor (mother-in-law) would be the most inventive vegetarian of all. Having been vegetarian for more than 40 years of her life, she has created some dishes never seen before in Norway or anywhere else in the world.

All the necessary ingredients - potatoes, red cabbage,
broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms. Mmmm...!

It's usually quite a big setup with cooking Christmas dinners. A Norwegian Christmas won't be complete without rødkål (red cabbage) salad, potatoes, re-soaked apricots, prunes and steak. Our vegetarian version of the steak is made of onions, various nuts, starch and herbs.

Everybody say "nam nam" - Scandinavian equivalent of "Yum"

This was our steak last year and I placed paprika on top of our healthy nut steak to spell the words "God Jul", which means "Merry Christmas" in Norwegian. The English greeting would take up too much space on the nut steak. Notice the crunchy fried mushrooms on the side? They were made by my Viking Man.


I always find him a little obsessed with peeling mushrooms. I like my mushrooms a little bruised, thank you. But Viking Man makes the best fried mushrooms, apparently inspired by some German culinary tradition. A Norwegian version of mushroom tempura, perhaps?

I'm looking forward so much to this year's Christmas, because it means I've been in the land of the midnight sun for more than a year! Yes, I'm a proper Norwegian, thank you very much. Most of all, I remember the love and beauty of our tree and home. There is a certain je ne sais quoi about being indoors with a warm fireplace while looking outside at the frosty snowy landscape. I feel very loved then.



Until next time, Merry Christmas! :) little pixy boots