Ystäville!
In addition to my Pringles potato chip story wherein I queried the existence of Paprika flavour on the west side of the Atlantic, my Finnish friend Tero [1] told me a hilarious story from his trip to the US and Canada two years ago.
Tero was in Canada at the time and was buying potato chips when much to his surprise (and disgust) he read on the package “Flavour Seal” and thought that we Canadians sure had a warped and cruel sense of gastronomical preference. The idea of having a viable market to send hunters up north with clubs to kill baby seals just to flavour our chips revolted him.
On Friday I bought my bus ticket, return, from Rovaniemi to Utsjoki in the farthest north of Finland. The total fare, to cover just under one thousand kilometres, came to 390 mark(k)aa, or about $97.50 Canadian. I still cannot believe how this country makes internal travel so cheap! Canada are you listening?
Preparing to bike it from Utsjoki to Nuorgam then on to Norway
[1] Kari, followed by Tero, are my favourite Finnish boys’ names.