They don’t apparently consider themselves Finns, but they are. 
Some people do, but they’re clearly deeply damaged individuals. Alledgedly you can spot a witch by the fact that they eat lutefisk.
Ours isn’t made in a bathtub for one thing. 
She is 4. Sounds like she is right at the right age, then. Uhoh, I’m running out of excuses…
Oh yeah, she’s at the perfect age. Just bite the bullet already.
Lutfisk, or “lipeäkala” as it’s known in Finnish, is a Christmas dish that is mostly popular among older people. I remember that my grandmother always used to have a small amount of lutfisk at the table each year, even if no-one really wanted to eat it, “because it’s tradition”. I say it’s because, sweet old lady though she was, she just enjoyed seeing the looks on our faces as we fought to keep the stuff down.
ralph124c, for a more in-depth discussion of Ålanders, see…umm…earlier on this page, I think? Was it vifslan? (I can’t see the whole discussion when scrolling down the Reply page.)
I haven’t had a chance to read all of this thread yet, as I have to go and goose step my children into the Morning Routine and punt them off to school, but I wanted to say Thanks for Starting this thread!
*I always enjoy reading and learning about other places *and the ASK THE (Guy From BumFuckistania) too me is more indepth than any article one could read in a magazine. It makes me realize that just because we speak another language and live a bajillion miles apart, we all wish we could get drunk and have a knife fight in a sauna.
Three cheers for Eradicating Ignorance!
As a knitter, I have to ask the Burning Question: Do you knit?
As soon as I found my genitals again in the early teens, I found out “lipeäkala” smells just like…can’t believe this dish survived for centuries, and ended up as a Christmas special.
I like lutefisk.
I’m a pescetarian and feel the need for something that has a bit of protein and isn’t the result of my sisters and me becoming creative with meatless alternatives to ham (with memorable results like the Fake Ham with TVP and beets, The Great Falafel Fiasco, and last year, the lentil and walnut paté. Nice try, but tasted too much like chopped liver.) Our parents eat lutefisk too, but my sisters and their SO’s stick to eating the complementary stuff like potatoes, bechamel sauce, peas and black pepper. But all of us eat rutabaga, potato and carrot casseroles.
A lot of Swedish-speaking Finns are sticklers for the distinction between Finn and Finlander, contending that Finn connotates language and Finlander connotates nationality. In Finnish, there’s no distinction. This usage normally gets the blessing of the Swedish section of Kotus (the research institute for the languages of Finland, which also handles Saami and Romany). I tend to give foreigners the benefit of the doubt (apart from gritting my teeth a bit when faced with a Swede who compliments me on the quality of my Swedish). It might be far more dangerous to your health to call your new drinking buddy in a Glaswegian pub an Englishman.
I dunno… my old girlfriend was of Finnish descent and was a Witch (that is, a member of an certain earth-centred religion), and she never went near the stuff.
My parents are originally from Mustasaari/Korsholm that was mentioned earlier in the thread, and according to them, when they grew up in the 50’s, Finns were a mysterious people who lived somewhere in the east. 