The bear necessities

Last night I ate a bear. Not a whole one.

I can see environmentalists, vegetarians and the like all up in arms. It was a little hard for me too. I love bears. I see great big grizzlies and think teddy. And no matter how a hunter tries to convience me, I think there are not as many out there as there should be.

I had dinner in Saaga, a Lappish restaurant in Helsinki, complete with a menu in Sami, and waiters who spoke enough of it to impress me.

From the menu: We started with the entree that included a bit of everything, so I could try smoked and dried reindeer, reindeer tongue (my favourite) and bear salami, amongst cep mushrooms (divine), Lappi potatoes and potato bread (mmmm). The dried meats were fairly salty, hence my preference for the tongue, the first time I had eaten this part of the body. It was surprisingly fibrous like normal meat and not as fleshy and well tongue-like as I thought it might be. The bear salami tasted like salami, though my dinner companion could taste juniper in it, I would have been lucky to taste the bear!

I felt like that was enough but main course was still to come. I had reindeer fillet as I wasn't sure if I could make my way through a mains of bear. When I was in Zetor, I was pushed to make it half way through my moose / elk and the food here seemed like it was going to be delicious so I wanted something I really could enjoy.

It was the right choice. When the bear meatballs arrived and were flambeed at our table, I was poised over them with a fork. But when I tried then, despite finding them being extraordinarily tender, the game taste was too strong to eat all the meatballs and the sausage. Probably a good thing, as it wasn't actually my dish anyway! My reindeer was excellent, as tender as lamb, which made me wonder at what age is reindeer at its best and what is the equivalent of lamb, veal etc in reindeer eating age.

The meatballs came with a literal pot of perunamussia and despite it not being my dish, I was in heaven, reaching across and grabbing spoonfuls of the creamy salty mash.

I had to skip dessert, that's how serious the eating was, and we could barely walk back to the station.

It's a lovely restaurant with great service and if you had to eat bear, it's relatively more affordable there than anywhere else I have seen (remembering that the can is 20 Euro in Stockmann), and worth it for the mash alone (though most foreigners would faint at the prices, I was privileged to find a man in Finland who paid!). There were a lot of foreigners there but we're more looked after than tolerated and it's still quite a classy place.

Now to do some exercise. Because who on earth starts their new diet with bear!?