Finish the year with fun facts about Finland

Flag of Finland.

Why learn Finnish? If you want to go to Finland to see Santa Claus, or the northern lights,  Finland is known to the Finns as Suomi.

Finland's Tourist Atractions

Finland offers tourists saunas, salmon and Santa Cluas and the Sibleius museum as well as Moomins, sleight rides, the Northern Lights.

Finnish Language

Add the opportunity to learn Finnish, to conquer the challenge of the Finnish language. You already know one word. Sauna.  

Santa Claus

Finland is the land of Santa Claus who can be visited all year in the north of the country in a theme park offering ll sorts of delights for chidlren and adults. Winter is the time of year for sledges and sleight rides and ccross country skiing and riding across iced up lakes on Snowmobiles, and warming up afterwards in the sauna. In sumer, by contrast, the days stay light until midnight.

I was invited to Finland by the tourist board way back in the Eighties by the tourist board who were promoting trips to see Santa Claus. I aasked him what he would say to people who dont believe in Santa Claus.

He replied, I don't believe in Concorde.

We had flown into the capital Helsinki, which is in the south. Nowadays you will find a Moomins shop in the airprot. It is landsidde, so you can visit it during your trip to Finaland.

Reindeer Meat

I was offered a restaurant meal and my hosts asked if I would prefer steak or reindeer meal. (Which is known as venison in the UK, and at that time was very pricey.)  As a tourist and a travel writer i wanted to try the local specility. Bu not wishing to cause embarrassment by ordering the dearest thing on the menu, I asked for steak. A day or two later I had reindeer meat when we were not given a choice and I asked to see the menu prices. I was amazed to see that the exotic reindeer meat was much chepaer than steak. Finland has lots of reindeer, and few cows.  Cold coluntry means reindeer. (The males have the antlers I presume, to fight enemies to protect the females or beat off rivals.) 

Nowadays I understand the price of venison has come down and it is more available outside Finaland, but it is still a novelty. What does it taste like. I have eaten all sorts of exotic meats, including crocodile. I have to confess that they all become a blur. To me they ae all tough and tasteless and not worth extra money, just once as a novelty. Nothing is as succulent and tasty as chicken meat.

Finnish - English

ja - and

kiitos - thank you

mina - I (memory aid, letter m like me)

M - male toilets

N - female toilets

no - well

sina - you

English - Finnish

well - no

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Fabulous dinner at Fulham Wine Rooms

Fulham Wine Rooms entrance.
The beautifully decorated back room.
All photos by Angela Lansbury.Copyright.2016.

Problems
We went there, a group of just under twenty for a wine group's annual Christmas dinner. The decor was delightful. The only problems with this place were the timing of the potatoes, and the pudding which could have improved, but everything else was so wonderful that I will remember my meal for years to come. It was that good? Yes. But! You have to choose the right menu, or share food with somebody else who orders different dishes to be sure to get the top notch tasty nosh. So what do I recommend? I've tell you the whole story in complete detail.

Answer
We had the back room because we were a private party which seats up to about twenty for a Christmas party, birthday or other celebration. Very convivial.

If you are a small group of, say, four, in the main restaurant I think you might like the alcove at the back of the room on the right, though if the left hand room is busier and you like a crowd go for that area where you can catch the eye of the staff at the bar and wander over to the drink machines and choose a glass of wine from the dispensers.



Starters
I can't comment on the scallops which I didn't try because I am allergic to shellfish. I had the artichoke soup. Highly recommended.

Soup
I and my dining companion were ecstatic about it. I shall look for recipes on line. The soup was flavoursome. But what really made it was the slivers of wafer thin brown almost crispy intense flavour artichoke. How did they do that? Exquisite. Just right. Flavour of the year. But that wasn't the only one.

Bread
We don't like to fill up on bread and the group organiser hadn't ordered any but one person asked for bread. Up it came, with butter, fruit bread. I love fruit bread. Not quite as good as the multi-seed loaf with is six stars, but a top of the ratings five star bread.

Next, main courses. Here's the blip. The venison is perfectly presented. It arrives with sprouts, a carrot, a parsnip, and a spread of mash.

Story
My companion on my other side says his venison tastes like steak. He tells me a story about his father-in-law who was a butcher. In a restaurant they are served what is described on the menu as chicken and looks like chicken. You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fall all of the people all of the time. His father-in-law knows immediately that the texture is wrong. He calls over the waiter and says, "This is not chicken. This is rabbit!"

Tips
1 Order the artichoke soup. Or, if it's not offered, request it.

2 Make sure you get all your vegetables, notably the potatoes. If potatoes don't appear with your main course, ask for them immediately.

My delicious turkey roulade was slices from a rolled up meat with an intensely flavoured wrap of wafer thin smokey bacon, contrasting with some kind of stuffing, a mixture of three flavours. Wonderful. What looks like a puree of pretty orange parsnip is interesting - but where's the second vegetable, the potato?

The person diagonally across from me immediately asks the waiter for potato. Not to be outdone, I do the same. The waiter nods and hardly any delay, up come two large portions of new potatoes in butter, half sliced, fried, very tasty, a big bowl for each of us, enough to share with others. I have just finished my food when up come more bowls of potatoes for everybody else. The timing of the potatoes was all wrong. What happened?

3 Order the creme brûlée for dessert.
Creme brûlée was the last brilliant course, the dessert. My dining companion and have made a point of ordering different food. We always do. Especially if you are having two or more Christmas dinners in successive nights or even the same week. We have ordered one Christmas pudding, my choice, and one creme brûlée, his choice.

We had already had what we thought was the world's most wonderful dessert in Umbria, Italy, at the truffle producers. (See my other posts on Umbria.) But here's another, and one which anybody can try, much more easily, creme brûlée, the thickened cream served not in a small deep bowl but a large flat dish, with a scattering of embedded contrasting colour dark black berries.

The only problem is, looking back at TripAdvisor and comparing last year's dinner with this year's it's a different menu. This is a second dish I shall try to emulate.

If you can't get this dish, try to make it yourself. If you go to a restaurant where you can ask for a dish, ask them to make this. If you go to Fulham Wine rooms, check their menu.

Christmas Pudding
Christmas pudding is traditional for Christmas dinners in England. The Americans call it plum pudding, although as far as I know it's made with dried fruits nowadays, currants and sultanas and chopped candied peel. Check the ingredients on packaging.

I've seen plum pudding in American supermarkets all year, including summer. In England Christmas pudding is seasonal like everything else with the word Christmas. Christmas Pudding appears in British supermarkets around November. The leftover stocks are half price after Christmas in January. Then it disappears. Any supermarket can sell you a delicious Christmas pudding which takes a minute or two or three (depending on portion size) to reheat in a microwave.

4 Avoid the Christmas pudding at Fulham Wine Rooms. This was the last blip. I hate to criticise. I worry that I may be ruining the day for some trainee chef who has tried really hard. I hate to say this. But I and three other people thought the Christmas pudding was lacking. It was too pale, lacking the rich fruit, no great flavour, 'dry as dust' said one person, not relieved by the moistening of the custard. The custard looks ample in the photo but by the time I was half way throuth the pudding I had run out of the white custard.

I'm British. I was brought up on yellow custard. Yellow custard is yummy. Yellow custard is to the English what pasta is to the Italians. I expect yellow custard. It's absurd, you may think. I concede that it's unreasonable of me. Yes, yellow custard looks like school dinners. The yellow colour is not necessary. It's probably a nasty colour additive. Fresh or dried custard powder or imitation egg may upset people who are allergic to egg yolks. But I want thick yellow custard on my Christmas pudding - and lots of it!

To sum up, try artichoke soup, venison and creme brûlée at Fulham Wine Rooms. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

We didn't want to leave. We were so happy. But the last train was going. Luckily you can now get all night buses in London. But we didn't want to risk missing the last train. Why spoil a perfect evening?

Fulham Wine Rooms
871 – 873 Fulham Road,
London
SW6 5HP
Telephone:
+44 207 042 9440
www.winerooms.london/fulham
Hours
2.30pm – midnight, Monday to Friday.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2142592-Reviews-The_Fulham_Wine_Rooms-London_England

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
You can read more by and about Angela Lansbury, the author, on other blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Books by Angela Lansbury are on Amazon and Lulu.com
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Fabulous Five course lunch with matching wines at The Harrow Restaurant in Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire

Who would drive an hour and a half out of London just to eat a splendid meal, one of the country's best - we'd eaten there before - we would, when we were offered one of their tasting menus, which work out a good price compared to a la carte. Spinning out of London along the M4 motorway in September sunshine, we admired the green belt, the green trees and fields of trees, towards Hungerford. Just after the Welcome to Wiltshire sign we saw another sign to Little Bedwyn. The road narrows like a tunnel between hedges into a funnel, twisting and turning, passing the canal which is crossed by small humpback bridges, bordered by static barges and a towpath, the only movement being small brown bobbing ducks.

Was it worth the drive? Yes. Other diners were enjoying shellfish from the a la carte menu, but I'm allergic to shellfish. My amuse bouche of a small cup of sweetcorn soup had not been adulterated nor enhanced by the crab which the others enjoyed.

The made in the house bread was two sorts, tomato, or seaweed. Both well flavoured. In fact the bread is best enjoyed eaten alone, so as not to swamp the flavour of the 'soup'.

This is the yellow sweetcorn soup with the orange crab in the centre. The amuse bouche.

The menu and the starter of salmon with cucumber sorbet.

Notice the lovely layout of the spoon between the two knives.

Two red wines (choices of different people) matching the main course of venison.

The matched tasting wines were £15 for 3 glasses.

Blackberry dessert.

The Harrow at Little Bedwyn

Marlborough
Wiltshire
SN8 3JP
Tel: +44 (0) 1672 870 871
email: reservations@harrowinn.co.uk
www.theharrowatlittlebedwyn.com

My Christmas Stories For Speeches

Snow and chills are more likely to hit London, England in January, February and March than in December, so if you bet on a no-snow Christmas you are likely to win. The further north you go in winter, the greater your chance of a white Christmas, the sort you see on Christmas cards showing Victorian England with sparkling lights in Christmas trees, and happy families skating on ice, or trotting past fir trees to glowing churches.
   The cold month of Christmas turns cities into mock snow scenes. Decorations transform dark Britain into a red and white fairytale grotto for children. The lights are turned on in Regent Street. Mock snow of cotton wool or white paper lace like doilies is stuck on windows.  Regent Street's Hamleys toy store, attracts crowds. Other department stores, Selfridges in Oxford Street, Harrods in Knightsbridge, have dazzling displays in windows.
   Everybody is preparing for the UK calendar's Christmas, which culminates with the exchange of present on Christmas Day December 25th. To attract shoppers, from the start of the month of December the streets have lights sponsored by shops. Celebrities turn on the lights and make speeches.  Carol singers on corner collect for charity. For the religious, churches display scenes of baby Jesus in the manger. For secular celebrations, Father Xmas appears wearing the jolly red coat made popular by Coca cola, like an ageing Toastmaster. Ho, ho, ho.
   Where can Father Christmas find a speech suitable for children? To find jokes about Christmas go onto websites of one-line jokes created by and for children. Adult sites are cynical, saying that Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol, was neigh, neither good nor a king. But Wenceslas is the hero of the Czech Repugblic, and his statue stands in Prague at the top of the hill in Prague's main shopping street, so it would be prudent to say only good things about kind Wenceslas in that country.
   The internet pages of Xmas jokes by and for schoolchildren, however, are not troubled by anything so cynical and serious. A children's joke, taking the words of the Xmas carol, goes, 'How does "Good King Wenceslas" like his pizza?' Answer: 'Deep and crisp and even.'
   There are many sentimental songs about snow and Father Christmas. I'm dreaming of a 'white' write Christmas, was written by a Jewish songwriter. Every Christmas a new number one song celebrates Christmas.
    Newspapers like to run stories about 'What Jews do for Christmas?' I wish I were writing a hit song about Christmas. Many Jews, Hindus and other Non-Christians will be saints in disguise, dressed as Father Christmas, working in hospitals and other essential services so that Christians can stay home to celebrate Christmas with their family.  The Father Christmas in the children's ward in your local hospital is usually not a Christian but somebody of another religion, happy to make children happy.
  My late father-in-law was father Xmas at the BB Evans department store in Kilburn High Road when he was a member of staff. After he retired he again applied to be a Father Xmas in a department Store.
    As an adult, with two or more members of my family and friends dressing as Father Christmas, in Santa Claus costumes which I bought on the internet for under £5 each, I am naturally a non-believer in the idea that there is only one real Father Xmas, who rides through the sky on a sleigh.
    Even as a trusting and naive child I found all the Christmas make believe confusing. For a long time I thought Father Christmas was the father of baby Jesus. Then I found that Father Christmas was also called St Nicholas. And the father of Jesus was Joseph. And Christians weren't Jewish. But Jesus was. After you were baptised you became a Christian.
   Then we went on holiday to Spain where December 25th Xmas lunch was not traditional turkey as in England but sardines on a sandy beach. I discovered that in Spain they celebrated the birth of baby Jesus on January 6th with three Magi, not men wearing white, riding on camels, speaking Arabic, Aramaic or Hebrew, but Spanish-speaking men, wearing black, on horseback throwing sweets to Catholic crowds in the streets.
    You can imagine my surprise on going to America and finding they had Christmas shops open in summer, staying open all year. Another Christmas summer struck me when I went to Australia, where the sunshine and snow seasons are reversed. In Bondi you go for a barbecue by the beach on Christmas Day. Some Australians celebrate Christmas in England's mid-summer when Australian weather is colder. Over in India, hotels in Delhi have plastic Xmas trees in the hallways to make foreign visitors feel at home in the heat. The Russians treat their children to a secular Grandfather Frost.
   But surely this popularity of a jovial gift-giving grandfather figure has spread worldwide, a long way away from the origin of Father Xmas? If you really want to research Saint Nicholas, you will find he is popular across Europe and America, claimed by warmer countries such as Turkey, as well as the colder ones such as Finland.
   I must admit I love the lights decorating the streets, the Christmas trees in London and Singapore, though trees may be pagan, imported by Prince Albert for Victoria and Albert's children. What of the Santas in the grottos? Surely you never find them in real snow. You do, nowadays.
   When I worked as a travel writer I was taken by the Finnish tourist board on a trip around Finland. Far from England's Xmas turkey, America's turkey, buffalo, and beefsteak, in Finland I discovered that rheindeer provide meat which we call venison - which is very expensive in the UK. So I ordered steak instead. When I sneaked a peek at my hosts' dinner bill I was horrified at what I had done. My steak had cost my hosts twice the price of the venison I'd wanted to try. At the second restaurant I corrected my mistake and ate venison, feeling guilty about poor little Bambi. However, deer are so abundant in Finland that nobody worries about Bambi. Even in England we are secretly culling deer to prevent damage to forests, and serious road accidents on motorways caused by straying deer. Yes, you can enjoy venison in Finland where venison is cheaper than steak because snowy countries have more deer than cows.
    In Finland we went to visit Santa in his grotto. I asked Santa what he would say to people who don't believe in Santa Claus riding through the sky on a horse or rheindeer-drawn sleigh. He said he travelled by horse-drawn sleigh. He must have had this question before. He asked how I had travelled to Finland. I replied, 'by plane'. He retorted wittily, 'I don't believe in planes. I don't see how a plane can fly.' What makes that funny is that he has echoed my thought about sleighs.
And the naive or inexperienced don't believe planes can fly either.
   Back in London, more news about the 'myth' of Father Christmas. I read that a vicar had aroused the wrath of the parents in his congregation by telling the children that Father Christmas did not exist. This seems to happen in a church or school somewhere in Britain every year or two. The result was that some of the disappointed tinies burst into tears. parents were furious. Perhaps parents should give children badges warning, 'Father Xmas - he knows, you know', or 'Regarding Father Xmas, please pretend - he doesn't know!'
    Whilst I will happily wear a Christmas hat and decorate with fireproof fake snow, unlike some people who decorate, I don't believe in Father Xmas, fairies and witches or ghosts. I was all set to tell my own children the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Father Christmas. It's a popular pagan myth which brightens the short, dark days with bright lights, cheerful colours, and goodwill gifts to the rich and poor alike, goodwill to all. As a teacher of English I was determined to be straight forward about the origins of everything from Xmas cards, crackers, green fir trees, red suits and sleighs, with any pupil who asked.
    However, this changed when a little Korean girl asked me if I believed in Father Christmas. I opened my mouth, and hesitated, trying to frame a reply. Then she interrupted, 'My father said that if you don't believe in Father Christmas, you don't get any presents!'
    This made my life difficult. I was rather hoping to get a present from my pupil's father. In adddition, I did not wish to destroy her faith in her father by contradicting him. Nor did I want her to be denied the pleasure of receiving Christmas presents. Neither she nor her father would ever forgive me.
   What should I have said? I talked evasively around the topic, saying most children in England, and worldwide, believe in Father Christmas, but some adults don't. You have to get used to the idea that other people don't always recognise what you think is the truth. But it makes life easier if you don't contradict them, but smile politely, and continue to believe what your parents believe.
    So, my dear adults and children, have a wonderful Christmas, all seasons, all year, up north or down under. I hope you will believe in Father Christmas, whether you are on the beach in Bondi, or dreaming of a white Christmas. Meanwhile be good all year, to be sure that next Xmas you will get lots of presents.