Maaemo

Maaemo is an Old Norse word meaning ‘Mother Earth’. It is also the name of a restaurant in Oslo which focuses on the flavours and nature of Norway. It only uses organic or wild produce from the country. The tasting menu consists of over twenty dishes and we also opted for the juice pairings. It was an amazing meal and one of our favourite dining experiences.

SnackS

Potato flatbread
langoustine claw steamed with
beer and fermented turnip

Fermented trout
with leek

Sourdough
duck liver and rhubarb

MAIN

Emulsion of Norwegian flat oysters
warm sauce of mussels and dill

Paired with smoked apple juice

Scallop cooked in the shell
with fermented celeriac
verbena and smoked scallop roe

Cod from the arctic gently
cooked with salted butter
horseradish and winter herbs

Paired with white tea and elderflower:

Langoustine cooked
with spruce

Lightly smoked arctic char
aquavit and burned onions

Grilled eel
elderflower and warm eggs

Paired with sour plum and cherry:

Rømmegrøt - a porridge of very sour cream and freshly milled wheat
smoked reindeer heart, browned butter and aged plum. vinegar

Fresh rolls out the oven
glazed in birch syrup

churned butter and salted butter
with buckwheat

Salt baked rutabaga
broth of salted sheep

Paired with blackcurrant, thyme
and beet vinegar

Duck “Royale”
chestnuts and lingonberries

Paired with black cherry and star anise

Frozen blue cheese with pickled black trumpet mushroom

Dessert

Fresh milk and rhubarb root
woodruff and preserved blueberries

Paired with raw milk and birch

A dessert made from salted butter from Røros

Dessert Snacks

Grains and cloudberries

Young pinecones preserved in honey

Brown cheese tarte

Buckwheat “chocolate”

Warm traditional Norwegian waffle with miso

Cinnamon bun just out of the oven
brown cheese and beef fat

maaemo.no

Lofoten Islands

The Lofoten Islands are located in the north of Norway.  Comprising of five main islands, we started at the southernmost village of Å on Moskenesøya and worked our way to Svolvær on Austvågøya, the largest city and capital of the archipelago. Little fishing villages are scattered along the route; the most photogenic being Reine, Sakrisøy, Hamnøy, Nusfjord and Henningsvær.

We happened to be in Lofoten during the midnight sun, a natural phenomenon when the sun does not set for the entire day.  This only occurs near the Arctic and Antarctic Circles during the summer months. It was surreal to be driving at two in the morning with the sky still lit up. 

A unique Lofoten experience is staying in a rorbu — one of the traditional fishing cabins built half on land and half on water. Our cabin in Reine was #20 (Steinbua) at the Reine Rorbuer. Inside were two bedrooms and a large kitchen area with our own fireplace. 

Food on Lofoten unsurprisingly consists mainly of all things fish: fish soup, stockfish, clipfish, cod, cod tongues, etc. Every winter, they hang the cod on wooden racks to dry. By the time we arrived in mid-June, the fisherman had already begun taking the stockfish down. 

Anita's Sjømat sells great fish sandwiches with salmon and/or shrimp. It is also a road-side general store that stocks a variety of seafood and local food products. In Henningsvær, we had a refined dinner at Fiskekrogen which was a bit of a mix of classic and new Norwegian cuisine.