The last Thursday of September is ‘celebrated’ as Fårikål feast day. Fårikål is a traditional Norwegian dish made from interlaying layers of lamb with bones, cabbage, and whole black pepper thrown in a casserole and cooked till end of time. Don’t take me wrong, I like this dish – but if we have Fårikål day – shouldn’t we have pølse day…wait, I forgot, that is called søttende/syttende mai (National day). Fårikål is served with potatoes – which leads to another interesting fact – potato picking holiday week. Yes, the picture you see, although black and white is very recent taken in downtown Oslo – it is why children have a week holiday…ooops, I meant break… from school – to go and help their parents pick potatoes. Well, today, this potato week is actually called ‘høst ferie’. This change of name was due to the fact that potatoes made a civil claim against the government for using the copyrighted name ‘potatoes’ unlawfully. Anyway, it is a nice week holiday – but you only get it at school – unfortunately not at university. By the time we reach university age, we are expected to try and get ourselves properly educated without the distractions of potatoes, so as to make some money to keep growing potatoes.
