Mat På Bål

         Last week the Friluftsliv (outdoor life) class hosted a seminar called Mat på Bål, or Food on the Fire. They tested it out a few weeks before, and luckily decided to share the fun with the school. We have quite a few grills and fireplaces on the lawn, so we got a bunch of fires going and set up a long table full of food. The goal of the day was to make pizza on the fire, but there were other options as well. 

        There were only a handful of pans to cook the pizzas in, so we each had to take turns. Kristine and I were in line for a pan, but decided to see what else there was to do in the meantime. The class had carved out a bunch of fruits that we were meant to stuff and wrap in tinfoil to put on the fire. There were apples with a cinnamon filling, and oranges with brownie mix. Obviously we chose to make brownie filled oranges, so we sealed them up and set them on the fire. 

        They took around a half an hour to cook, but we were a bit impatient and took them off early. Fabian had been helping people turn and cook the fruits, but he had other stuff to do so I took over. I found two sticks and stood by the fire rotating the apples and oranges so that they could cook evenly. 

        We also made pinnebrød, essentially bread on a stick. Ananda and I wrapped dough around a stick and dipped it in the cinnamon sugar, then cooked it over the flame. It was delicious! The oranges were really good, but they probably should have cooked longer because we were basically eating boiling batter with a hint of orange flavor. Chocolate's chocolate though, so I can't complain. 

        When it was time to make pizzas, we spread the dough out in the pan and put it on the grill so that the bottom cooked. Then we flipped it over and added toppings. I put cheese, pepper and onion on mine, but there were a lot of options available. We then cooked the pizza on the fire again with a cover on the pot so that the cheese would melt. 

        I took mine off and it looked really good! Tommaso came over--looking like he'd just crawled out of bed--so I offered him a bite of the pizza. He thought it was so amazing that he asked to buy it from me, but I said we could just split it. It's quite an accomplishment when the Italian thinks your Norwegian fire-pizza is the best he's ever had. 

        While we enjoyed our pizza and desserts, others cooked fish and vegetables. Tomimaru cooked a huge amount of salmon that he shared with the group--it was great! At the end, Frederik was cooking a banana filled with chocolate. I'd eaten quite a lot already, but he convinced me to try it, and I didn't regret it one bit!

        When the seminar was over, it was up to the Friluft class to clean up. In case you didn't already know, Friluft is my favorite class and if I were Norwegian I would have been part of it. So, like the suck-up that I am I offered to help clean. I brought some of the food back to the kitchen and helped carry one of the tables up. When I came back down, Morten (their teacher) seemed to have accepted my presence, so he immediately assigned me the dishes!