‘Am I happy?’ is a question many of us ask ourselves. If you’re Finnish, you should be really, really happy. For the seventh year running, Finns have come top in the world happiness report.
Some ascribe this to their sense of community and relatedness. Others, such as chef Sami Tallberg, to their connection with nature – hiking through forests, relaxing by lakes and foraging for food.
So, by happy coincidence, Sami is showing me how to forage. We’re on an island near the south-western city of Turku and are covered by Finland’s ‘everyone’s rights’, allowing us on to privately owned land.
Once I learn to recognise bilberry leaves, I find an abundance of blueberries hidden under the forest floor. Rarer are juniper berries, which take three years to ripen, and wild cranberries and strawberries, which you smell long before you find them.
That’s dessert sorted. But when itcomes to mushrooms, Sami – a genial, sandy-haired man – gently reveals I have a lot to learn. He asks me to sniff one– it’s all almond croissants. But it’s called a fishy milkcap as, on cooking, fish flavours come out.
I get excited when my eye lands on a giant toadstool, but Sami tells me that while it’s not poisonous neither is it particularly tasty.
‘When you’re foraging, finding something is a bonus,’ says Sami, sensing my disappointment at my prize find being rejected. But in this game of Pokémon Go, with Sami bounding deerlike into the undergrowth and spying delicacies invisible to the rest of us, he is winning this contest.
A summer storm is brewing and we head to Sami’s kitchen, where flowers and leaves sit prepared – the purple flowers of harebells, dandelion, sheep’s sorrel, wall lettuce, orpine, clover-like wood sorrel and St John’s wort. The result, when he mixes them into a deer tartar, is astonishing. Every forkful tastes different, a dizzying explosion of fresh piquant and peppery flavours.
For the main, Sami has prepared sea zander with pike roe sauce and new potatoes. But the standout ingredients are the mushrooms – the girolles, hedgehog mushrooms and fishy milkcaps, as well as pickled black trumpets – their complex flavours fighting for attention.
I’m feeling heady but there’s one more treat to come – those wild berries served in a herby meringue crown, their smells and tastes so redolent of the sunny forest floor – even as the thunder rattles the windows of our villa overlooking the sea.
Finland is encouraging foraging again. In Turku’s town square, opposite my hotel, there’s a food market open six days a week where vendors pay no tax for selling locally foraged food.
So, the next day I wander around Finland’s former capital munching on berries. With its medieval cathedral and castle, and old Luostarinmäki quarter preserved as an open-air museum, the city has lots to see.
For a locally sourced lunch, Turku’s market hall is wonderfully atmospheric. Its 151 beautiful wooden booths date from 1896 and many have their own lunch counters. To keep this culinary tradition alive, Turku must make it accessible to its youthful population.
As I steer an electric boat down the Aura river, I pass party ships full of the city’s 40,000 students. They impart their youthful energy to the pensioners I see dancing the tango in public squares.
Happily, the city’s restaurants offer good value for money – right up to the classiest venues. At waterfront Nooa, a four-course-plus tasting menu costs €69 (£57).
Also good value are dinner cruises of the Finnish archipelago, with more than 40,000 islands. On the steamship Ukkopekka, I enjoy a rose-tinted journey through islands of pink granite, with pine trunks lit red in the sunset.
The next day brings a visit to Naantali, gateway to Moomin World. The riviera-like town has a large spa hotel suitable for families and the boutique Tammiston Kuulas restaurant-hotel, which has won recognition for sustainability. I’m conscious my foraging has involved a lot of consumption so far, so I must hone my skills.
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That is the mission of Finland’s Rural Women’s Advisory Organisation, and Anna Kari is on hand at the Kurjenrahka national park, north of Turku. For the mushrooms, she focuses on three – russula, ceps and chanterelles – as they are easy to recognise. Ceps are beef-like in texture and taste, while chanterelles are light in a spring-onion broth – which Anna cooks on the spot.
We cross a marsh to find cloudberries and bog bilberries. In the forest, we pick rowan berries to make almond-like lemonade. Our dandelions will make a honey-like jam.
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That’s the joy of foraging. Not only are you keeping the skills of past generations alive, but the flavour of those halcyon summer days.
Want to experience nature's bounty in Finland?
Colin travelled as a guest of Visit Finland and Visit Turku. He stayed at Scandic Hamburger Börs hotel, where rates start at €139 (£116) a night for a double room including breakfast.
Information on Sami Tallberg’s foraging and cooking courses is at samitallberg.com. Hiring an electric boat with Låna Boat tours costs €63 for an hour. Visits to the Naantali Spa start at €24 a day.
Return flights with Finnair from Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh to Helsinki start at £174 including taxes, with bus transfers from the airport to Turku bookable alongside flights.
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