Dark Bread, Strong Coffee, Strange Sweets

Finland does not do fussy. The national dish, chosen by public vote, is a loaf of dense sour rye bread — almost black, faintly sour, and so beloved that Finns abroad have it posted to them. Alongside it sits coffee, drunk in greater quantities per person here than anywhere else on earth, and berries picked free from forests that anyone is allowed to walk into.

Then there is the other Finland: the century-old comfort of Fazer Blue, the weekly ritual of karkkipäivä when children are let loose on the pick-and-mix, and salmiakki — salty liquorice that Finns consider a national treasure and most visitors consider a practical joke. There is rarely a middle ground.