<story><title>How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch</title><url>https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/7/20887473/norway-norwegian-lunch-sandwich-matpakke</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mogadsheu</author><text>Former Norway resident here, 3yrs.&lt;p&gt;Their lunch traditions are definitely basic, as they were not a wealthy country for hundreds of years before striking oil in the 60s.&lt;p&gt;The point to remember is that while the fare is basic, the quality is typically very good. Their cheese is extra creamy and nutritious, as is the bread. The same goes for the milk.&lt;p&gt;Many Europeans won’t drink the milk here in the States because the quality tends to be much lower, due to feed&amp;#x2F;living conditions for livestock. Garbage in = garbage out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>umeshunni</author><text>&amp;gt;  as they were not a wealthy country for hundreds of years before striking oil in the 60s.&lt;p&gt;I was surprised by that statement and had to look it up and it was, of course, false. Norway was a wealthy country back to the 1800s:
sources: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@Jernfrost&amp;#x2F;no-norway-was-not-a-poor-country-before-oil-was-discovered-b58dd365e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@Jernfrost&amp;#x2F;no-norway-was-not-a-poor-count...&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eh.net&amp;#x2F;encyclopedia&amp;#x2F;the-economic-history-of-norway&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eh.net&amp;#x2F;encyclopedia&amp;#x2F;the-economic-history-of-norway&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch</title><url>https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/7/20887473/norway-norwegian-lunch-sandwich-matpakke</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mogadsheu</author><text>Former Norway resident here, 3yrs.&lt;p&gt;Their lunch traditions are definitely basic, as they were not a wealthy country for hundreds of years before striking oil in the 60s.&lt;p&gt;The point to remember is that while the fare is basic, the quality is typically very good. Their cheese is extra creamy and nutritious, as is the bread. The same goes for the milk.&lt;p&gt;Many Europeans won’t drink the milk here in the States because the quality tends to be much lower, due to feed&amp;#x2F;living conditions for livestock. Garbage in = garbage out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>trhway</author><text>Absolutely. The quality of typical supermarket bread, bologna, cheese, butter in US is pretty low, so while it may look similar the taste and afterall feeling is really different.&lt;p&gt;A very typical and widespread cousin of the Norwegian sandwich from USSR&amp;#x2F;Russia - &amp;quot;buterbrod&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Butterbrot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Butterbrot&lt;/a&gt; . Bread + butter topped with cheese or bologna or hard salami and chased down with black tea (hot, or at least warm, to make sure that the high fat content of the butter and the topping  blooms into great taste, and it probably also helps digestion considering how good it feels :). Topped with cold smoked fatty fish (typically a red like salmon) or red or black caviar - great &amp;quot;zakuska&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Zakuski&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Zakuski&lt;/a&gt;) to chase down vodka or cognac.</text></comment>