Housewife Goes to Market

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 110, 3 February 1938, Page 5

Housewife Goes to Market

Progress Conies Slowly in Finland, Where Shopping is a Weekly Event

QTOCKING a larder in New Zealand is a very simple . process. The housewife in the city can do it simply by ringing up her grocer and asking him to deliver the things she requires. In a country district she drives to the nearest town and takes away her parcels in her car. In Finland shopping is not so prosaic, and, though it may be much more trouble, it is far more interesting.

day is a weekly event, and people from outlying districts gather at the local market-place to buy and sell their goods. The markets open at 8 o’clock sharp. This rule was made a long time ago to give everyone an equal chance of buying fresh meat, as in this heavily wooded country it is often scarce and the cows kept on the farms are solely for milk. Pasture, in most cases, is too valuable for fattening bullocks.

hang them on long poles across the ceiling to dry and harden. The idea is, of course, economy, as you cannot eat much of this kind of bread. It is really false economy, as the children often break their teeth, and their parents certainly cannot afford to give them false ones! Another popular bread is called sour-sweet, and is 'made with rye flour mixed with sour milk and coated with thick, black treacle. There is also a purely sweet bread made with wheat and raisins and called “bulla.’’ The Finnish people have a charming custom of giving all their friends a loaf of bread every time they bake. If is called “giving a sample of warmbread.’’

Well before 8 o’clock boats begin to crowd into the little harbour. xAll sons of quaint craft come down the river and from homesteads on the coast, and often they are loaded down to the water-line with produce. Very early in the morning the stalls are set up on wooden trestles, and everyone on landing, at once makes a beeline for the section set aside for their type of goods. The iish, meat, and vegetable sections are all kept separate. Everything is amazingly cheap. It has to be. as the peasants have so little money. Up-country they receive hardly any wages at all, but get payment for their work on the estates in rations of wheat, rye. potatoes, a little milk, and a few eggs. In markets where iish can be caught locally it is sold alive and before the ferocious-looking pike that has caught your fancy can be weighed it has to be knocked on the head and killed. The most popular iish are stroinming, which are eaten in every Finnish home. They are really.small herrings, and are cooked in a variety of ways for different meals.

They are weighed up in string bags, ,and it is an extraordinary sight to watch them being hauled out of the big wicker-work .crates looking, .in the tightly-packed bags, like writhing silver balls. Enough fish for a family of half a dozen can be bought for a few coppers.

Many peastints set out along the roads at sunrise to reach this market, and it is from them that the villagers buy their wild berries, such as bilberries. cloudberries, whortleberries, wild raspberries and strawberries. All these are in great demand for bottling, and make a use full addition to the simple fare of the famil. All kinds of hand-woven cloths and ijugs tire on sale, and often beautiful things can be picked up at ridiculous prices. Groceries are not much in demand, as most villages have their gen-’ eral store these days. Bread is rarely seen in a marketplace because everybody bakes at home. The peasants bake,Only three or four times a year, and they never use any yeast in their sour-brettd. as it iscalled. Pure rye flour is used, and the dough is mixed in the same Wooden tub that their parents used before them: nobody thinks of washing out the family “dough tub” after the grand bake. There is it reason for this, for the bread would not rise without yeast unless some of the bacteria was left in the “tub” to act upon the dough.

After they have baked several hundred flat.' round loaves, they punch holos through the centre of each and