Finns are Obsessed with Strawberries

Strawberry has a special spot in the hearts of Finnish people. I saw the above picture at Helsingin Sanomat, the major newspaper of Finland, and to me that says Summer In Finland. In Finland eating strawberries on summer is living life to the fullest, and enjoying the best of summer. The strawberry season is sweet but short, and for many Finns the Real Summer is only those few weeks when it’s the strawberry season, and the rest of the summer is spent already preparing for the fall and for the long and dark winter following that.

If you ask a Finn, what should you do on your trip to Finland in July, you’ll get an answer “go to market place and get some fresh strawberries”, and you will be quite amused by someone even thinking that it is considered a novelty.

In Finland it is.

The strawberry season is the main headline of all major newspapers starting on the mid-June, when it is juhannus, the midsummer fest, and Finns officially kick off summer. The speculation of when the strawberries are ripe, what’s the strawberry crop like and then of course the price of strawberry (it’s more discussed topic than lets say price of gas or milk) and the overall strawberry media craziness goes on until ending with the stories of strawberry season being over (sometime in August).

Strawberry grows in Finnish forests, but the strawberry you find in the nature is smaller than blueberry, and not what you are used to seeing, and the larger type of strawberry has always been farmed. There is a Finnish saying “oma maa mansikka, muu maa mustikka”, meaning own land is strawberry, other(s) land is blueberry. The saying originated by land owners knowing where their own land ended – the strawberries were planted, so they belonged to their “own land” and the blueberries grew wild in the forest and were on “others land”. Nowadays the saying has a different meaning – meaning that your home country is the “strawberry” and other countries are “blueberry”, and has a similar meaning with the “east or west, home is best”.

Pictures from the strawberry cake recipe contest at Helsingin Sanomat

Many Finns pick their own strawberries, it is cheaper to pick your own strawberries to be made to jellies and to be frozen to last the whole winter long, than buying them from farmer’s markets or grocery stores. But weirdly, most of the sold strawberries are picked by immigrants, who come to Finland from Russia, Eastern Europe or Thailand only for the berry season. You can make more money picking strawberries in Finland in a day than you can make in many countries in a week.

When I was a kid, I picked strawberries. Mainly with my mother and we froze them for the winter (to be eaten with crepes, yum!) and maybe I did it also to earn money a few summers, and I remember being sunburn, thirsty, neck and knees hurting, and seeing red even after you quit picking the berries. And unless you were a really quick picker, the money sucked!

Strawberry may have a special spot in the heart of Finns, including mine. However… it isn’t the few weeks of summer that’s called the strawberry season, nor the careless days buying strawberries from the market place and not even the strawberry I miss the most.

I miss the lingonberries with meatballs,
the gooseberry jam my grandmother made,
even the horribly bitter sea buckthorn juice my mom made me drink
(“it is good for you!” she said),
picking up blueberries directly from the forest
(of the backyard of my childhood home),
helping my grandmother to pick red currants from our own garden and watching her to make juice out of them
(and drinking it the whole winter long),
and especially the desserts with cloudberry.

Strawberry might be the most popular berry in Finland, but it’s the whole other berries that I miss from back home. I can get strawberries here, but it’s the other berries that are more difficult if not impossible to get. At the same time it seems like most Finns have a little wanderlust in their hearts, that something like strawberry, that is originally planted and imported to Finland has a bigger spot in their hearts than the berries that have been growing the Finnish forests for ages. Then again, life has it’s balance, hasn’t it? There is a place for common and normal and then the extra sweetness too. As a Finnish song writer Mikko Kuustonen said, there has to be strawberries and oatmeal in life.

Tagged as: finland, finnish culture, scandinavian food, strawberries, summer