Norwegian vs British 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.

Pies are everywhere. Pub menus still feature steak and kidney, rich beef and gravy in pastry. The Cornish pasty was once a miner’s packed lunch, filled with beef, potato, swede, and onion. Sweet pies like apple with custard or sticky treacle tart are classics. Pork pies are eaten cold with jellied stock. But Shepherd’s pie (lamb), cottage pie (beef),  and fish pie, though called ‘pies’, still swap pastry for mashed potato topping.

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.

The British love preparing their root veggies with a two-stage method: parboiling followed by high-heat roasting.  Honey glazing is another practice; it involves adding honey only in the final 8-10 minutes of cooking to achieve caramelization without burning. Later, it was often combined with thyme or sage.

Green peas, or mushy peas, are a British classic, both nostalgic and practical,  loved for their comfort-food appeal and mild sweetness.

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.

The Sunday roast traditions are Britain’s weekly meat celebration. Most families choose between lamb with mint sauce, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, or pork with crackling and apple sauce.

For weekday comfort, bangers and mash is quintessentially British. Brits eat more sausages per capita than Germans, despite Germany’s reputation for sausage-making.

Another British institution, served as a weekend treat, is the full English breakfast, featuring bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, and mushrooms.

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.

Cod is the fish of choice in the famous fish and chips dish, and haddock is the second most popular white fish and the most popular fish for smoking, commonly dyed bright yellow.

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.

Back on the British preferences: red Leicester claims second place with 20% popularity, followed by mozzarella at 18%, then halloumi and brie tied at 15% each. This ranking shows how traditional British cheeses hold their ground against international favourites.

Scotch egg is a classic pub snack: a hard-boiled egg wrapped in seasoned sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Scotland. It’s so quintessentially British that it’s become a symbol of traditional pub food.

British pubs have a unique tradition of serving pickled eggs as bar snacks, often sitting in large jars behind the bar for months. These vinegary eggs are salty, and they do increase beer sales – a brilliant bit of British business psychology disguised as food.

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.

Fruit-based desserts are very popular, especially crumbles and pies like treacle tart, Bakewell tart, and banoffee pie. Eton mess – a delightful chaos of strawberries, meringue, and cream – is another favorite.

What Brits really love is the combination of rich, warming flavors with creamy accompaniments. Almost everything comes with custard, cream, or both. There’s also a nostalgic element – many of these desserts evoke childhood memories and family traditions.

Nuts aren’t used extensively in traditional British cuisine compared to many other cuisines.