Rudolph, The Red-nosed Reindeer Made a Very Tasty Dish

After USS Cole successfully completed her participation in Exercise Joint Warrior 09-2, we headed east to make a couple port visits. These were regularly scheduled visits intended share goodwill with the Navy’s friends and allies.

Our first stop was in Helsinki, Finland. The first thing I asked was “What should I eat here?” The typical I response I got was to “Eat reindeer.” Reindeer? I didn’t even know that people ate reindeer. With the holiday season quickly approaching eating reindeer almost seemed appropriate. (because the holidays are eating at me… kidding!) So, where would I find this delicacy?

It turns out that most restaurants in Helsinki serve some version of reindeer. The traditional way to cook it is to sauté strips of reindeer, make a gravy from the fond, and serve it over a bed of creamy mashed potatoes with lingonberry compote/jam/sauce on the side. Lingonberries (AKA cowberries, lowbush cranberries, or mountain bilberries) are red, round, and extremely tart; they are more closely related to the blueberry than the cranberry. You can buy lingonberry jam at IKEA (by the bucket if you like).

My liberty group found reindeer at the tourist favorite, Zetor. Zetor is the Finnish hillbilly version of Friday’s, though it’s not a chain. It’s designed to look like a 1960’s era ski lodge and includes a tractor as part of the décor. The bathrooms are bedecked with pages from 1960’s era Finnish pinup magazines. Classy, I know. This wasn’t fine dining, but that wasn’t our goal. We wanted fun and memorable. That’s certainly what we got. Our server was friendly, prompt, and fluent in English. (Seems everybody in Finland is multilingual).

I ordered the sautéed reindeer, but swapped with a friend who didn’t like the potatoes that came with his roasted reindeer. He clearly made the better choice. The roasted reindeer was a fillet served over a bed of scalloped potatoes with the same lingonberry compote. It was a comforting dish that brought Thanksgiving to my mind, minus the turkey, of course. The reindeer was tender like a medium rare cooked fillet mignon, but obviously not as beefy; nor was it gamy. I think AB needs to do a Good Eats episode on reindeer and lingonberries. Dinner was pricey, but that had more to do with the value of the dollar than the price of reindeer.

Reindeer isn’t as exotic or even gamy as you might expect. I highly recommend eating reindeer if you get the opportunity; I’ll try cooking it if I get the chance. Maybe I should leave reindeer bait with the cookies I leave for Santa… Hmmm.