Saturday, February 23, 2013

Is Mämmi solid beer?

The Finns come Easter time take great delight in bringing out a box of mämmi. They always smirk when they ask you would you like to taste it, because it looks like something that you should not be eating. It looks like something you would find in a field of cows that had been sent out to pasture.It is dark, it is brown, and the only thing missing is a hoard of flies swarming over it.

It is impolite to decline such a Finnish delicacy, and they assure you that it tastes much better than it looks, and to seal the deal they say you can have sugar and cream on it. It is difficult to comprehend this logic, of making something faintly disturbing, better by putting sugar and cream on it.

Anyways when you look at what it is made of, the label says malted rye and malted barley, with a bit of pommerance  peel. Now if mämmi was marketed as a Guinness derivative, and that it was solid beer without the alcohol, then it might open up new doors for a world wide export market.

Having tasted it I have to confess that it is not that bad once you expunge the cows in a field connotation from your memory. I was enthused enough to try and make it myself. The baking process takes many hours and at the end of the day my mämmi turned out to be a real competitor for asphalt on the road. I believe I could patent the process and sell it as a substitute for tarmac.