Moomins Cookbook: An Introduction to Finnish Cuisine by Sami Malila, Tove Jansson
My rating: 5/5 cats
milliliters??? grams???
yeah, yeah—i’m not a horrible enough person to expect that european-published cookery books should be written in stubborn-american measurements, but at the same time, i am an american who is terrible at the math, and i do not want to ruin my “moominmamma’s pear surprise” by adding too much lingonberry jam, now, do i??
fortunately, looking at these recipes, the majority of them seem to be fairly forgiving. i doubt that “finnish fish bubble and squeak” will be ruined by too many grams of “assorted fish” if i miscalculate.
“if”
hahhaahaa
“when”
and the honey and butter on toast sandwiches doesn’t even have measurements! phew!
this book is wonderfully illustrated, with moomins and friends engaged in the act of making food
enjoying picnics
gleefully smooshing berries
and…whatever this is
that is not something i wish to eat, thank you.
there are also excerpts from the various moomin books, and the result is both a beautiful and fun addition to my novelty-cookbook collection.
but it’s not “novelty” in terms of “no one will ever use it to actually make food.” the moomins are creatures who love to eat, and some of these recipes sound like things i would like to eat on a moomin-organized picnic:
delicious spinach rice bake. a promise! of deliciousness!
vegetable patch summer soup! once i wrap my head around turnips being a summer vegetable, i will eat this with gusto. (recipe for gusto not included)
both explorer’s mushroom ragout and mushroom stew
and whomper’s special pudding.
i will make all of the above, and hopefully soon
however, i will probably never make the “smoked baltic herring spread” which involves herring, gherkin, creme fraiche, and cottage cheese. i have no quarrel with those ingredients individually, but my brain is having difficulty making sense of them all glopped together.
and, i personally feel that nine different recipes for variations on gruel/porridge is a little bonkers, but then, i’m not a gruel-enthusiast. maybe i could become one. maybe that nameless yearning i am feeling has a name, and its name is “millet.”
but even if i never make any of the jams in this book (i want to be the kind of girl who makes jam, but the chances of my actually ever taking the time to do it are pretty slim), this is still so beautiful to flip through and dream of also being the kind of person who owns a wicker picnic basket and has a bunch of moomin-shaped friends to sit and eat a formal picnic with, with assorted containers of exotic (to me) delicacies like rowanberries and pumpkin marmalade.
yum. just yum.
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