Saunawurst, the Finnish National Vegetable

Yesterday my friend Tommi and I spent the day ice fishing. The weather was a very tolerable -5 °C (23 °F), and the reeds along the shore stood stiff and yellow out of the snow. We drilled our holes and gave the fish the mandatory twenty minutes. Then we agreed it was time for the main reason for the trip, which was to build a good campfire and spend the rest of the day sitting beside it, chatting idly.

We built the fire on the shore, against the butt of a fallen tree. Whenever and wherever we go, the fire is the high point of the day. A mushroom picking trip in the autumn or an ice fishing trip in the middle of winter is made better, enchanted even, by a big campfire. I love everything about it. The smell of the smoke, the sparks rising with it towards a dark sky, the noise it makes and, last but not least, the warmth. We stayed until it was dark.

Sometimes happiness lies in simple things, and the same goes for food. When the setting is right, you have an appetite and there are good friends around you, even the simplest dish can taste delicious (or palatable at least). It is hard to imagine a trip outdoors without a packet of saunawurst in the rucksack.

Lenkkimakkara, to give it its Finnish name, is a Finnish speciality, a cheap, overgrown link sausage with the consistency of bologna. It is sold bent into a horseshoe, and lenkki means a loop. Despite its lack of pedigree it is eaten by everybody, regardless of age, sex or wealth. The best way to cook it is over a live wood fire, often in the fireplace at home after the sauna, which is where the name comes from, or over a campfire. In the sauna itself it can be wrapped in foil and laid on the stones of the stove, and on weekdays it is split, filled with cheese and baked in the oven, or cut into soup. Some would say you know nothing about Finland until you have tasted it. It goes with memories of good food, good times spent together, everyday chores and idle moments.

When Finland joined the European Union in 1995, our beloved saunawurst got into the line of fire of EU bureaucracy. The sausages are roughly 40 per cent meat, the rest being flour and whatnot (I don't even want to know), and so they were officially classified as pastry products. Quite embarrassing for the leading manufacturers. This may very well be an urban legend, but it doesn't change the fact that the sausages are mostly made of fillers rather than proper meat.

Our ice fishing trip was no exception. As soon as the fire was burning we pushed the sausages onto twigs and started grilling. If you have the patience of a Buddhist monk, wait until the wood has burned down to red-hot coals, which gives the best results. We were hungry, cold and impatient as usual, and held ours straight in the flames. The skin blistered and split. The hot saunawurst still tasted heavenly under heaps of mustard.

By the way, we didn't catch a single burbot, but who cares. Burbot move mostly at night, so there was little point in expecting one in the middle of the day. The local supermarket is the best fishing ground anyway.