{"id":305377,"date":"2026-03-31T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/?p=305377"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:57:10","slug":"oslo-26-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/2026\/03\/31\/oslo-26-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Oslo 26 June"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

You can\u2019t just show up. Oslo<\/strong> demands a reason for attending. I told friends in Malm\u00f6 I was going and they could only ask why? Was I making money? Was I getting a Nobel Prize? If you\u2019re not getting paid to gut fish then what fuck are you going to Norway for? That\u2019s the Swedish bias talking but it really made me question the whole trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friends, family, and smoked sheep head are the only answers I could offer. Not necessarily in that order. There\u2019s also Joachim Trier, of course. His Oslo films Reprise<\/em>, Oslo August 31,<\/em> The Worst Person in the World<\/em> and now Sentimental Value <\/em>did wonders for the city’s image in my mind. With nominations for Trier, Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd, the Academy Awards clearly agree. Instead of just a dull, expensive city filled with wealthy hillbillies, Oslo is now a dull, expensive city filled with attractive, melancholic, and cinematic<\/em> wealthy hillbillies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had visited once back in 2009 and left unimpressed, but it was time to give the city another chance. On the night-bus there I envisioned walking aimlessly around its parks like Anders Danielson Lie on a 24-hour break from rehab, or smoking a cigarette overlooking the city like Renate Reinsve wondering what the fuck she\u2019s doing with her life. Neither of those scenarios are too far from the truth for me. And maybe, if I looked depressed enough, I would run into one of them, maybe Trier would tap me to be his writing partner for the next movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What really happened involved a lot of frozen pizza, but more on that later.<\/mark> In some kind of freak coincidence an old friend, an aunt, and a cousin were all going to be in Oslo at the same time. Plus it was Pride, there was a 30 year Irish pub-anniversary promised, and it was only a 7 hour bus ride away. There were definite reasons for me to go. So I went. A friend of a friend graciously offered to host me in the newly developed suburbs of the city and all of a sudden I was there breathing Norwegian air, getting singed by Norwegian sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an excessively beautiful place, that country. I just needed to locate it. Where exactly is the beauty? The obvious answer is in the fjords. Oslofjord is full of these idyllic little islands with cute colorful summer houses on them. Beauty. Another answer could be that it\u2019s in the city\u2019s parks, where residents flock to enjoy sunbathing and grilled meat. Some parts of Oslo felt like more park than city even. That\u2019s beauty. A third answer could be the Oslo Opera House, the very first thing on my list to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craig Dykers, the man who designed the opera house, also designed my parents’ wedding invitation. They were friends in college. I kept telling random people that until a ferry operator told me to shut the fuck up. Of course it wasn\u2019t just one man, but a whole firm. Designed by Sn\u00f8hetta and completed in 2007, the Oslo Opera House is a gorgeous glacier of a building right on the waterfront that attracts hundreds of tourists like me everyday. You can walk on top of it. You can lay your ass down on the roof and get a panoramic view of the whole city. Once again, beauty. But sitting up there, perched on the Italian marble that makes up the opera\u2019s facade, I couldn\u2019t help but feel suspicious of my surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I\u2019m just too broke for my own good and this is definitely privilege suspecting privilege but what\u2019s a nice way to say these people have too much money and it\u2019s freaking me out? I even started empathizing with Swedish people, that\u2019s how flagrant the wealth is. But peeling back the socio-economic layers of Scandinavia wasn\u2019t part of the mission in Oslo. The mission is always guts, which, just like in Sweden, proved hard to find. After some research, smalahove<\/em>, smoked sheep head, is what I set my sights on.<\/mark> The Norwegians I talked to called it Christmas-time farmer food mostly available in the Western part of the country but I was still determined to get one. I thought maybe a classic Norwegian restaurant would serve smalahove<\/em>, but I was hard-pressed to find one of those too. Walking around Oslo is like walking through a city divorced from its own culture, just taquerias and burger joints everywhere, I felt like I was trapped in two different trend cycles from two different centuries. And while the Birria tacos with consomm\u00e9 I had at Corrals taco truck were delicious, they left me slightly confused. Is this what Norwegians eat? Traditional food proved elusive and anything new nordic was relegated to pricier spaces, which, well, fine.<\/em><\/mark>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smalahove<\/em> though? I got one on my first day. It didn\u2019t take long at all. I gave up on finding it in a restaurant and went straight to the butcher. A nice butcher, Annis Oslobukta, with a very kind woman working who went into the back and plucked one out of the freezer for me. She didn\u2019t say it but I can tell she was a little perplexed and slightly amused by my interest in the sheep head. She couldn\u2019t advise me on how to eat it but she did give me a free salami stick for my trouble. Norwegian kindness is different from the Swedish type, tinged with a healthy dose of pity, but kind nonetheless. In fact, almost everyone I met in Oslo was incredibly nice. Everyone besides the angry Serbian man I met at the Irish pub who didn\u2019t like the way I dressed. I tried explaining Japanese-Americana to him before I saw his fists clenching and just walked away.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent my first day in Oslo walking around with half a sheep’s head defrosting in my bag, only bringing it out to show that grotesque fact to my aunt and cousin.<\/mark> As it lost moisture the smell of smoke permeated my whole outfit, until I laid it to rest in the fridge, where the smell permeated the groceries. I wrapped the thing in three plastic bags and you could still taste the smoke on your tongue whenever you opened the fridge door. I didn\u2019t eat it until four days later, back in Sweden, far, far from its origin point. In total this sheep head went from the fields of Western Norway to the smokehouse to the butcher to the burbs of Oslo and then onto a bus carriage for eight hours before landing on my plate in Malm\u00f6, Sweden.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To serve smalahove<\/em> you have to put the sheep\u2019s face on a plate. The head is split in two, half a tongue, one cheek, one ear, and one eye. It looks back at you while you eat it. And how do you eat it? Nobody could really give me any advice. Boiled? Steamed? Turnip mash was the only consensus I could find. A wine importer friend advised me to drink a nice bottle of riesling with it. You need something to cut all that fat and smoke, she said. No turnips or wine on hand, I ended up eating the sheep face with dijon mustard, pickled gherkin, and kombucha. Cutting myself as I cut cheek meat off the bone, the smell of smoke was almost overwhelming. You\u2019re supposed to save the eye for last, so I did. The cheek was the most tender part and the eyeball was hard to gather out of the socket, but I certainly felt more Norwegian after eating it. Not my favorite version of sheep head by any means, Ras<\/em> in Marrakech takes that crown, but at least it tasted of a place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smalahove<\/em> doesn’t have a geographical designation recognized by the EU yet, perhaps because Norway isn\u2019t part of the EU, perhaps because they don\u2019t care enough to work it into a joint trade agreement, or, most likely, because there\u2019s no real threat of counterfeit smalahove<\/em> out there. When Germany starts selling Norwegian Smoked Sheep Head from Voss in LIDL then we\u2019ll talk. When Norwegians start caring more about traditional products than Grandiosa frozen pizza then we\u2019ll talk. That begs the question though, what the fuck is traditional food? Grandiosa is Norwegian, it\u2019s been around long enough (25+ years) for the recipe to get a geographic indication, consumed in huge quantities (23 million a year by a population of 5 million), and is even considered the national dish of the country by 20% of Norwegians. Still, holding the box in my hand, it doesn\u2019t say \u201cMade in Norway\u201d anywhere.\u00a0<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to try one. I had to try two. When you celebrate the 30th anniversary of an Oslo institution like The Dubliner, complete with 30 year old beer prices, hungover frozen pizza is a must. And after the first bite I knew I had finally found what I was looking for. There it was at last: beauty, Norway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t just show up. Oslo demands a reason for attending. I told friends in Malm\u00f6 I was going and they could only ask why? Was I making money? Was I getting a Nobel Prize? If you\u2019re not getting paid to gut fish then what fuck are you going to Norway for? That\u2019s the Swedish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"graphics-double-column","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"selected_color":"","palette":"{\"media_id\":305378,\"colors\":[[4,4,4],[204,204,204],[87,87,87],[124,124,124],[116,116,116]],\"selected\":\"rgb(4, 4, 4)\",\"gradients\":{\"a1\":[\"#f6feff\",\"#edfcff\",\"#97f0ff\",\"#4fd8eb\",\"#22bccf\",\"#00a0b0\",\"#008391\",\"#004f58\",\"#002b30\",\"#001f24\",\"#001417\"],\"a2\":[\"#f6feff\",\"#edfcff\",\"#cde7ec\",\"#b1cbd0\",\"#96b0b4\",\"#7c959a\",\"#637b80\",\"#334b4f\",\"#10292d\",\"#051f23\",\"#001417\"],\"a3\":[\"#fefbff\",\"#faf8ff\",\"#dae2ff\",\"#bac6ea\",\"#9faace\",\"#8490b2\",\"#6b7697\",\"#3b4664\",\"#192541\",\"#0e1b37\",\"#030f2c\"],\"n1\":[\"#fafdfd\",\"#f8fafa\",\"#e1e3e3\",\"#c4c7c7\",\"#a9acac\",\"#8e9192\",\"#747878\",\"#444748\",\"#232627\",\"#191c1d\",\"#0e1212\"],\"n2\":[\"#f6feff\",\"#f2fbfd\",\"#dbe4e6\",\"#bfc8ca\",\"#a3adaf\",\"#899294\",\"#6f797a\",\"#3f484a\",\"#1e2729\",\"#141d1f\",\"#091214\"],\"error\":[\"#fffbff\",\"#fff8f7\",\"#ffdad6\",\"#ffb4ab\",\"#ff897d\",\"#ff5449\",\"#de3730\",\"#93000a\",\"#540003\",\"#410002\",\"#2d0001\"]}}","authors":"[{\"role\":\"Words and illustration by\",\"related\":[{\"postType\":\"collaborator\",\"postTypeLabel\":\"Contributor\",\"title\":\"Jake Mike Boy\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/collaboratore\/jake-mike-boy\/\",\"ID\":277344,\"value\":277344,\"label\":\"Jake Mike Boy\",\"thumbnail\":false}],\"title\":\"\",\"unique_id\":\"MTc3MzIyMTY2MjEyNF9qZ2d4Y2IycG41a18wLjkyODc3ODA5MDgyNDE4NTk=\"}]","magazine_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[2098,2412,2469],"location":[1621,1654,1655],"class_list":["post-305377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-an-offal-opinion","tag-oslo","tag-offals","tag-sheeps-head","location-europe","location-norway","location-oslo-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305381,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305377\/revisions\/305381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305377"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=305377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}