Norwegian vs Colombian food & cuisine

Everyday meals rely on simple, honest pairings – fish or lamb with potatoes; breads and crispbreads  topped with brunost, cured fish, cold cuts, lingonberries or cloudberries.

Top everyday choices are loff, rugbrød, landbrød, rundstykker.

Flatbread (flatbrød), an unleavened staple of farmers, shepherds, and peasants, is dry, crisp, and water-free. It was once eaten with cured herring and boiled potatoes, along with sour cream and butter. In Norway, it pops up everywhere.

The Norwegians have a tradition of matpakke, a packed lunch of open-faced sandwiches with toppings like brunost cheese, cold cuts, liver paté or cod roe from tubes. It is now a symbol of Norwegian lunch culture.

Norway is an unexpected global leader in pizza consumption, especially frozen pizza. Annually, Norwegians consume 47 million frozen pizzas! It is about 11 pizzas per year – the highest per capita pizza consumption in the world. Frozen pizza is so ingrained that it’s even considered to be an unofficial national dish.

Although rice is not a long-living staple in Norwegian cuisine, its consumption in processed forms and Asian-inspired dishes is gaining traction. Similarly, while corn is minor, it is incorporated into snack foods and side dishes.

Rice arrived via Spanish colonization and independently through the African slave trade. Coconut rice on the Caribbean coast developed as a distinct Afro-Colombian tradition. Wheat was never dominant. Pan de bono and pan de yuca combine cassava starch with cheese rather than pure wheat flour. The arepa was already embedded across social classes before wheat could establish urban prestige. Colombian empanadas — the country’s most common stuffed pastry — use cornmeal dough, not wheat, making them an exception within Latin America.

Norway has a short, cool summer, and local fruits have acidity and tanginess. Wild berries, apples, pears, plums, and rhubarb are readily available and used in sauces, jams, compotes, crumbles, and pies.  Norway also consumes many imported fruits.

There’s an increasing movement towards healthy eating in Norway, with people paying more attention to dietary balance. The awareness of pulses’ benefits is leading to slow but increasing consumption of lentils, beans, and chickpeas, even though they were never staples in Norway.

Yuca, potato, arracacha, plantain, and ñame fill the role bread or pasta plays elsewhere. The same ingredients carry class associations — historically tied to rural, Indigenous, and Afro-Colombian households , now they appear in restaurants when fried, filled, or paired with cheese or seafood.

Kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, and peas are central to Andean and Antioquian cooking. A pot of beans absorbs hogao (onions, garlic and tomato base), stretches meat, and feeds a household across multiple meals.

Fruit is consumed almost entirely as juice blended with water or milk. Lulo, maracuyá, tomate de árbol, and guanábana are too acidic or texturally difficult to eat whole, and also don’t travel well, and are less known outside of the country. Almuerzo without juice is considered incomplete.

Fenalår, cured or slightly smoked slices of salted and dried leg of lamb, like Spanish Serrano and Italian Parma hams, holds the status of a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and is served as part of the cold buffet.

During the season, reindeer, moose, and elk are hunted. All three game meats are lean, require careful cooking to avoid drying out, and provide an intense “wild” flavor. Reindeer is less gamey than many expect, often described as falling somewhere between beef and venison. Moose is deeper and richer, with a robust, earthy taste; its texture is dense. Elk meat strikes a middle ground with a clean, sweet flavor that’s more complex than beef.

Beef is another staple in Norwegian kitchens, frequently grilled as steaks, minced for meatballs called kjøttkaker, and stews.

Most distinctively Colombian as ternera a la llanera (mamona),  young beef salted and roasted upright on stakes around an open fire, distinct from Argentine asado’s grill-based method. Pork is a celebratory food. Lechona — whole deboned pig stuffed with rice, peas, and pork fat, baked up to ten hours.  Chicharrón (fried pork belly with a retained meat layer) is the everyday food.

Preservation techniques are limited given the year-round warm climate and continuous fresh meat supply; dried beef exists in the Llanos, regional chorizos, and longanizas elsewhere.

Lutefisk, another cod dish, takes the concept of “acquired taste” to a whole new level. Dried cod is soaked in water and lye (the same lye used in batteries and soap) till it gains a gelatinous texture. With a very distinctive smell and texture, it polarizes people – you either love it or find it quite off-putting.

Over time, Norway’s dominant seafood export transitioned from cod to farm-raised salmon, a product of modern aquaculture. The one traditional Norse dish is smoked salmon røkelaks – the most important Scandinavian contribution to modern international cuisine. Gravlax, a salt, sugar, and dill-cured salmon, is also popular in Norway, though it’s originally more associated with Sweden.

Beyond cod and salmon, Norwegians also cook with herring, halibut, sardines, mackerel, freshwater trout, and char. Seafood is consumed fresh, smoked, salted, or pickled. Herring is particularly popular preserved in salt, named spekesild, but also in many other marinades and pickles. Creamed seafood soups are common along the coastline.

Cold waters of Norway are home to luxurious crustaceans: king crabs, prawns, shrimps, lobsters, langoustines, sea urchins, and scallops. Atlantic shrimp is a staple in many homes – served cold with mayonnaise and dill.

In the Caribbean region, whole fried mojarra with coconut rice and patacones; cazuela de mariscos (shrimp, fish, squid, clams, crab in coconut milk) for celebrations. In the Pacific, encocado — fish, shrimp, crab, or piangua clams in coconut milk with hogao, annatto, and herbs.
Colombian ceviche also exsist, but is rather regiona. It contains tomatoe sauce and is commonly served with saltine crackers; closer in character to a shrimp cocktail than Peruvian ceviche, developed from Caribbean and Afro-Colombian influences rather than as a variation on the Peruvian dish.

Freshwater fish, like bocachico was historically important, now under pressure from overfishing; cachama now the primary commercially farmed freshwater species.

Another Norway’s gastronomic identity is the sweet brunost, a brown cheese product made from whey, milk, and cream, but it is not an actual cheese. The distinctive brown color is from caramelizing the sugars in milk during the boiling process. It has a sweet, nutty flavor and pairs well with flatbreads, waffles, or on its own.

More sophisticated, traditional gamalost, an ‘old cheese’, is firm, moist, coarse, and granular. It is not produced in sufficient quantities for mass export, and it is rare to find this cheese outside of Norway.

Pultost is a soft, mature sour milk cheese with caraway seeds, very low in fat, and available in both spreadable and grainy forms.

Scandinavian countries have a tradition of using sweet and sour cream in their cuisine, balancing richness with acidity. Creamy sauces are common in pasta, meatballs, fish, and vegetable dishes.

Queso campesino: Soft, moist, mildly acidic; used in arepas, soups, and baked goods.
Queso costeño: Firmer, saltier; grated over rice or paired with suero costeño — a pourable fermented milk condiment, believed to derive from Arab Colombian adaptations of labneh.

Chocolate santafereno: Hot chocolate served with a slice of fresh cheese dropped into the cup, melted, and eaten with a spoon. Daily breakfast tradition in Bogotá; no equivalent exists elsewhere.

Arequipe: Milk caramel, related to dulce de leche; eaten with obleas, fruit, and in bakery fillings

Modern Norwegian eating patterns increasingly incorporate nuts – especially almonds and walnuts – into snacks, bakery toppings, and salads, aligning with  dietary guidance that promotes a daily handful of nuts for health.