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Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 29 Apr 2014, 2:39pm
by DaveGos
I always live mainly on drinking yoghurt in Scandinavian countries . It gives you rehydration and plenty of energy . I toured in 85 and that was what we lived off and last year spent time in Stockholm and Copenhagen and again it was a cheap form of nutrition. I litre cartons, but of course it does not suite everybody

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 30 Apr 2014, 1:25pm
by FarOeuf
hi,

found this, and (so long as you like fish) it's great. good recommendation, thanks.

makarel.jpg


the chiller cabinets in supermarkets are full of types of milks and yoghurt. any idea one which one is 'normal' ? I did buy something on my last trip in November, it had a mountain biker on the front and I assumed it was some sort of refreshing milk-type drink. it was awful, and sour. kulture-milk or something ?

cheers

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 30 Apr 2014, 2:09pm
by Vorpal
Yes, Stabbur makrell is what I was trying to recommend :)

Normal milk is 'hel melk', or 'lett melk' for semi-skimmed. Whole milk is usually in a red carton, and semi-skimmed in a pink one. Normal yogurt... it depends on what kind you want. I like 'skogsbær', which is just mixed berries in yogurt. I'm not so sure about the drinks, as I don't use them, but I will try to post more later, when I have a little more time (and maybe a chance to take a few pictures?)

Also, the 'Skyr' stuff is usually pretty good, though it has a different, almost cheesy texture, compared to yogurt.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 30 Apr 2014, 9:39pm
by Vorpal
Normal Milk...
2014-04-30-6828_1.jpg


Flavoured milk drinks (they are sweet & have chocolate, strawberry, banana, or other flavours added)
2014-04-30-6826_1.jpg


Protein shake...
2014-04-30-6816_1.jpg


yogurt drink...
2014-04-30-6829_1.jpg


Skyr...
2014-04-30-6823_1.jpg


Other possible sources of protein include:
-cheese (ost, in Norwegian), it tends to be either expensive or dire, but a couple are pretty good. I like one with cumin in it called 'nøkkel' there's another called 'pikant' which is a mild cheese, but has chili around the edges. Kremost (full fat cheese) can also be pretty good.
-peeled prawns (pillede reker), look for them in the area with the lunch meats. the ones in brine (lake) will probably keep longer, but they are really salty. In the same area, you can typically find mussels (blåskjell), crab pieces, etc.
-liverpostei, which is a liverwurst type thing, that often has other things added to it (bacon, ham, chicken, etc.). I've never tried it, but Norwegians seem to eat plenty of it.

Lastly, there are lots of tubes (they look like toothpaste tubes) of different things. There are a number of different 'ost' type things sold this way. They are processed cheese with bacon or another flavour. I don't think they are so nice, but my kids like them. There are also some that say 'caviar' which tend to be part (30%?) fish roe, and the rest egg yolks and other filler. They are a bit better, IMO, and probably worth trying, if only for the experience. In some parts of Norway people seem to eat the stuff for lunch every day.

If you want a hot meal that won't cost an arm and a leg, look for a Chinese cafe in a shopping centre. The food is usually halfway decent, and about as cheap as dining out can get in Norway.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 7:54am
by PJ520
I wish I'd had Vorpal's advice when I was in Norway. I found the food bloody awful and incredibly expensive. On a lighter note the tourist office in Stavanger sent me to a 'motel' at an address that turned out to be a hospital. Thinking I'd got to the wrong place I walk into the lobby and ask where the motel was to be told "This is it" At one stage I was shoving my filthy old Trek with four paniers onto a smallish lift and had to back out to allow a woman with a tiny baby on a cart thing to get off.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 10:04am
by Vorpal
Another thought about protein...

Ethnic groceries and large supermarkets often have a pretty good selection of nuts, and may have them to buy in bulk, which is a little cheaper. The salted ones are pretty salty. I tend to mix salted and unsalted.

And cheese... if you like to try some different things, try the brunost (brown cheese). It's a sweetened goat cheese. It's very Norwegian, though it has a mixed reception from visitors. Perhaps it's an acquired taste, because I didn't like it the first time I tried it, but I do now. It's not a cheese to eat in a sandwich with salad, though. Just eat it on a slice of bread or cracker, maybe with a little butter.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 10:11am
by Vorpal
Pete Jack wrote:I wish I'd had Vorpal's advice when I was in Norway. I found the food bloody awful and incredibly expensive. On a lighter note the tourist office in Stavanger sent me to a 'motel' at an address that turned out to be a hospital. Thinking I'd got to the wrong place I walk into the lobby and ask where the motel was to be told "This is it" At one stage I was shoving my filthy old Trek with four paniers onto a smallish lift and had to back out to allow a woman with a tiny baby on a cart thing to get off.


That's a bit funny. Did you find the 'motel' eventually? Had they converted part of the hospital or something? Or was there a miscommunication?

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 11:53am
by psmiffy
I cycled from Bodo to Stavanger a few years back - The OPs experience is pretty much what I found - away from the larger cities it was difficult to find much in the smaller shops (when they were open) to make a meal that I wanted to eat - so I tended to hoard - visit every small shop I saw open - buy small bottles of pasta sauce when they were available - as a staple I would buy frozen mince in the mornings - cooked with plenty of herbs and eaten with pasta in the evening together with whatever bread and cheese I could find - The mince lasts OK over a couple of days - and if i found something better (and some potatoes) was cheap enough that i was prepared to discard it if I was in doubt about it if i found something better at a decent shop - at no time was I short of decent filling food at a cost well below eating out - the benefit of having sufficient cooking kit?

Having to proactively forage for food is not unique though to Norway - travelling across the baltic states, parts of Poland, northern Greece, parts of New Zealand (and Germany at weekends) - Im assuming that folks travelling to far more exotic places have strategies to ensure they keep themselves well fed

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 2:51pm
by PJ520
Vorpal wrote:That's a bit funny. Did you find the 'motel' eventually? Had they converted part of the hospital or something? Or was there a miscommunication?


There was no miscommunication that was the right place. They served buffet style breakfast and everything. I never got an explanation of the arrangement. My guess is that the hospital covers a large area where travel is not that easy, a bit like, say, Oban and the accommodation is primarily for relatives and friends of patients. Scandinavian enlightenment as I see it. In one way it was different from a any motel I have used in the US or Europe. I pulled the wrong cord in the bathroom and immediately the phone rang to see if I was OK

When I got to Denmark things were better food wise. Though I did meet an Australian girl who lived there who appeared* to speak fluent Danish who said she would kill for a decent curry.

* How would I know?

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 5:40pm
by FarOeuf
I went through Stavanager, and the Tourist Info people suggested a hostel next to / in a hospital. I imagined it was in the grounds, rather than in the wards :)

picking up the mackarel, tuna, rolls (sort of sweet) are baked in the mornings by petrol stations and 3 for 190. Getting into the yoghurt too, and it's pretty cheap. smoked salmon is often (not always) cheap, and takes up no space. I have a 1kg bag of small macaroni shells, which cook very quickly. Things are definitely better now, and I tend to keep 3 evening meals worth in the bags at the minimum so I don't run out.

btw, went over the Trollstigen pass today. It's still closed, and they are clearing snow at the top. But it was a blissful 40km of traffic free cycling, albeit a little chilly at the top.

roadup.jpg


closed.jpg


snowclearing.jpg

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 7:53pm
by Vorpal
Nice pictures. Trollstigen is famous amongst Norwegian cyclists.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 8:53pm
by windysmithy
pickled herrings, in kilo tubs. cant go wrong (unless the tub spills in your pannier!) SO cheap compared to everything else.

cheapest food we found in norway. We definitely ran out of money!

The first day i bought some prepacked slices of meat in a blister pack, got a bit confused by the exchange rate and thought 'wow this is nice' once eating them by the fire. . when i went to get some more realised it was £15!! never tasted that again.

Nice pictures, thanks.

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 9:25pm
by PJ520
I imagined it was in the grounds, rather than in the wards
The wards must be on separate floors to the hotel stuff, the only place I saw the brand new Norwegians was in the lift

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 5 May 2014, 10:50pm
by Cadair Idris
As you travel north in the coming days, you might think about stopping for a night or two in an old fishing village named Sor-Gjaeslingan, which is spread across an archipelago located off the coast between the towns of Namsos and Rorvik. It's now the site of a museum that owns various old fishermen's cabins which you can rent. I stayed there while cycling the length of Norway back in 1994 (can it really be almost twenty years ago), and it was a truly atmospheric place in which to spend a bit of down time. Here's some information about the village -

http://www.sor-gjaeslingan.no/Userfiles ... 20screen(1).pdf

You can get to the village by a regular express boat service from Namsos, which is located some way north of Steinkjer on Route 17. Here's the link to the boat operator -

http://www.fosnesinfo.no/?lng=en&tema_a ... ade_id=268

And while I remember to say so, do consider staying at the youth hostel in Stamsund on the Lofoten Islands, which is run by the legendary Roar - http://hihostels.no/en/hostel/lofoten-hostel-stamsund/

Re: Surviving Norway?

Posted: 7 May 2014, 4:50am
by jjpeterberger
We'll be starting our year-long tour in Oslo in just over a month...too nervous and excited to even think about it!!!