Seven Never-Before-Seen Things at Stockmann’s Food Hall

This post is about a great department store – the largest one in the Nordic countries – with all sorts of amazing things to buy. Or so we think: we’ve actually only been in the basement, which is a city-block-sized grocery store. And friends, we apologize retrospectively for any other food hall we’ve discussed before. We know from food, and we’ve seen stuff in this place that we have never laid eyes on before. Both in terms of quantity and quality, it pretty much blows everything else out of the water. To wit:

Pistachio buns

These are just like our old friends the cardamom and the cinnamon bun, but with pistachio (and cardamom) instead. They are pretty good, but we still like ours better.

New and interesting veg

The above is a conical cabbage. Have you ever seen one before? We have not. Also, tomatoes in unknown hues, graffiti-ed eggplants, and mushrooms beyond our wildest imaginings. Veggies are among our favourite foods, so we spent an awful lot of time here, picking things up and poking each other. Yowza!

Rabbit

We have seen rabbit before, mostly on menus in Italy. And we have seen rabbits before. But we have never before seen frozen rabbit available for purchase. We resisted buying this one but it is such a relief to know that if we need to channel Yosemite Sam and make rabbit stew, we already gots the rabbit. There were also duck and reindeer and elk and bear and all of the obvious stuff too. Obviously.

Licorice

We have already noted the Nordic love of licorice, and it reaches frenzy-like interest in Finland. Here’s the licorice candy aisle, but there were also licorice chocolates and licorice ice creams and even, god forbid, licorice drinks. Have we mentioned that it’s usually salty?

Potato bar

No, not the kind where you put toppings on your baked potato or the kind where a potato can pop by for a quiet drink. This is the kind where the potatoes themselves are sorted out, as if they’re apples or something fancy like that. People from the north sure like potatoes. But still, this one goes on for a long way. It’s next to the pickle bar, which pales in comparison.

Laakalikori

Here we confess to a bit of disappointment: cloudberry flavoured liquor sounds a dream, but that Nordic love of sugar made it just a bit too sweet for us. Still, we’ll keep trying, with soda, without ice, on licorice-flavoured ice cream (or not).

Herb garden

There were four of these displays, featuring fresh herbs in pots. First of all – so pretty! Second of all, that’s a lotta herbs! We counted five basils and five mints. And, yes, we did see our friend shiso, available for purchase for the first time ever. So we’re experimenting like crazy: shiso dressing, shiso miso, shiso tofu…

Other

And of course there were ridiculously-sized cheese counters, deli counters, meats and fish, prepared foods, cakes, baked goods, and the above, which is a panoramic view of the oil and vinegar corner. It occupies as much space as our old bodega in NYC. Right next to it is a same-sized section for spices. And eggs. the eggs were not so photogenic as some things, but there seemed to be about a dozen different kinds, plus quail, duck, etc. etc. Two full aisles for yogurts and then another for drinkable yogurt.

And then there’s this guy, who didn’t make it home with us, however beseeching he looked. Though you can be sure a handful of the dozen or so varieties of herring did, along with a whole bunch of other food. Sorry, restaurants of Helsinki: we might not get to even a single one of you…