One cup of flour and a pinch of happiness
We went to Fiskars, because there was a Slow Food Festival on the 5th of October 2019 and the trip was part of our school project. Fiskars is a small village in Raasepori in the southern part of Finland. Fiskars has the old ironworks and it’s founded in 1649. In the food festival were producers that were offering different kinds of food. Our group were focusing on bakery products and producers.
After stepping out of the bus, getting the pink jamk.fi-stickers and walking past the ticket office, the area became suddenly super crowded. Stepping out of the bus and looking around it felt like there was not going of be a lot of people but that was far from the reality. In the main building it became difficult from time to time to even just walk around but with a little patience, things started to pan out. The atmosphere was filled with different scents, different noises, laughter and different discussions in many languages. For instance we could hear, Finnish, Swedish, English and German. It all made us feel welcome. Everyone was there to celebrate the many good things about Slow Food.
In general, there were not so many stands, that were offering bakery products. Most of the bakery stands were selling bread and buns with a few apple pies and cakes here and there.
We found few stands, which were introducing and selling their bakery products. One of these stands was called Sonja’s Delicatessen. Sonja’s Delicatessen is located in Ekenäs (Tammisaari in Finnish). Sonja’s Delicatessen was selling their juices, jams, cookies and bun rusks in the Food Festival. Their products are handmade without additives.
One stand stood out in the main building. This stand belonged to Linnan Marenki, which had a lot of beautifully wrapped pastries. The pastel coloured meringues invited us to have a closer look and after tasting the meringue crumbs we could tell that these were indeed high-quality products. I have never tasted meringues made with a Finnish candy called Tyrkisk Peber (a salty liquorice candy) but it was wonderful to see fresh ideas on pastries and desserts. So inspiring! The way the sellers smiled and posed for pictures made it seem like they were proud of what they were selling. Like many others, Linnan Marenki prefers locally made products.
In general, buying and tasting all kinds of products was different here compared to everyday grocery shopping. You could ask anything about the product from the seller, get information on the ingredients, where they come from and how the products are made – and you could get a small piece of product for tasting from almost every stand.
After the eye-opening presentation from Martin Ragnar, an author and an entrepreneur, we were looking forward to actually eat something. We had been so busy seeing things and collecting information we had no time to eat and were getting quite hungry. The sight of big piles of different bakery products such as donuts, Karelian pies and cakes was not certainly helping the situation and so we went to buy the Slow Food version of hamburgers from Serendipity Art Cafe. It was definitely worth the wait and the 12 euros!
A question came to my mind while sitting in the bus on the way back: Could there be a way to increase the selling of products that are made the Slow Food way? Would it be a good thing? Could we make Slow Food a bigger thing in the society? Of course, locally produced food and organic food are big trends at least here in Finland and a lot of people consume organic food as a part of their lifestyle. But as a stereotypical student, I feel like these products were something special in the way that I might buy them as a gift but I would not buy in everyday life.
Text and photos: Team Pullat/Arttu Kuuliala, Sanna Karjalainen, Minna Mäkelä and Riina Mäenpää