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Delicacies from far away

Text: Anni Jyrinki Photos: Milan Kolarovic

Even from ordinary supermarkets you are nowadays able to find noodles, exotic spices and flavoured oils. But a visit to little stores that are specialised in ethnic food – that’s like a journey away from a Finnish potato field.

Phuonf Nguyen from Asian Market is willing to give advise how to cook traditinal asian meal. Aromas from Exotic spices and oils fill the air in this little grocery store.

Smell is almost tangible but at the same time more than pleasant. Different kinds of spices and aromas from deep-fry and spicy oils are filling the air. Are we really in Oulu? It feels like I have suddenly arrived in China or somewhere else in Asia.

Asian Market in the Market Hall is a small but definitely a tempting store. From this stall you can find nearly all kinds of Asian groceries. The most familiar dish is noodles; we all know how often students cook those. But do you know how many several kinds of noodles there are?

Magic of Asian kitchen

Shop assistant Phuonf Nguyen in the Asian Market is willing to share some of her tips on how to make real Asian food.

– First thing is salt. Or in fact the lack of it, she explains.

We Finns intend to put too much salt in our food. In Asia people rarely add any salt. They use more spices and herbs.

Spices are probably the most vital wares of Asian Market. The most familiar ones to us are garlic and soy. But most of us use only soya sauce. A real Asian thing is to add some soy milk or soybean oil to food.

The shop assistant also mentions chilli, lime, lemon grass and curry almost in every sentence when se talks about the Asian kitchen. Exchange students form China, Japan, Thailand or other Asian countries would definitely feel like home in this little “spice world”. Nothing does away with home sickness like a delicious meal from home.

Almost all different kind of flours are found from Life. This little health food shop in specialized to organic products like spelt-flours in this picture.

Oriental flavours and Mediterranean diet

Ethnic grocery stores are not the only places were foreign groceries can be found. Very often so called healthy food shops also sell ethnic and fair dishes.

Good example of this is a shop called Life in the city centre of Oulu. It seems that a Mediterranean diet would be so easy to obey if you handled your daily shopping in this store.

Olive oil and organic vegetables and fruits are the base of Italian or Greek meals.

Wheat flour is the most common flour that we use in Finland. If you wish to make more healthy and “international” food, change the wheat to millet or to buckwheat. Real Italian pasta can only be made of durum wheat flour.

Oriental flavours can also be found by paying a visit to Life. Teas, spices and canned food should take you away from the ordinary Finnish main courses.

But one thing must be remembered. You don’t necessarily have to cook Tom Yam soup if you want use some extraordinary flavours. Try this: Invite your friends for coffee. Offer them self made buns. That’s so typical in Finland but this time the coffee bread is mysteriously yellow! What oriental spice can do that..?