Fårikål Day: autumn's most predictable pleasure

A dish that follows the calendar

Fårikål is one of the few Norwegian dishes still eaten more or less exactly when it's meant to be eaten. It arrives with the sheep gathering and the slaughter season, when the cabbage heads are firm and the meat is cheap, and disappears again as autumn turns to winter. Fårikål Day is marked on the last Thursday in September – a date right in the middle of the period when both main ingredients were traditionally at their most available.

The day of celebration itself is new, but fårikål's status as autumn's festive dish is old. The dish was voted Norway's national dish in 1972, in a poll on Nitimen on NRK radio. Fårikål Day came later, as a way of keeping the tradition alive – and, it has to be said, of selling mutton.

Erken and everyday food

Henriette Schønberg Erken (1866–1953) was a home-economics teacher and author, and Stor kokebok was in practice the reference work in Norwegian kitchens through much of the 20th century. What makes Erken interesting when set against a dish like fårikål is that she wrote for two audiences at once: the middle-class household with help in the kitchen, and the ordinary housewife who had to get as much food as possible out of very little money.

Fårikål fits the latter perfectly. The dish uses inexpensive cuts – breast and shoulder, meat on the bone with fat that gives body – and a vegetable that stores well and is grown all over the country. It requires no technique beyond patience: no browning, no elaborate plating. You layer meat and cabbage, add salt and pepper, pour on water and let it sit.

It's precisely this simplicity that makes fårikål a good yardstick for what changed in Norwegian cookbooks over the course of Erken's working life.

Two editions, one dish – two different kitchens

Stor kokebok appeared in twenty editions between 1914 and 1951. We have transcribed the first edition from 1914 and the revised 1949 edition, and fårikål happens to show nicely how Erken kept refining her recipes.

1914

The first edition is almost ascetic. The meat is dredged in flour and placed straight into the pot with cabbage, pepper and salt – with no separate sauce at all:

"The meat — breast or shoulder — is cut up, washed in lukewarm water, dried, dredged in flour and laid in layers in the pot with the cleaned, blanched, cut-up cabbage, pepper and salt; pour over boiling water, enough that it stands halfway up the meat; cook under a lid until everything is tender, about 3 hours."

Note the spelling of the era (in the original, vand, kaal, lok) – and that even then Erken gave her measurements in grams, an early adopter of the metric system.

1949

In the revised edition the dish has been lifted a notch. Now the recipe is split into "Ingredients" and "Sauce," the meat is cooked first, the stock is thickened into its own sauce with butter and flour, and the pepper is placed in a small bag so it's easy to fish out:

"Sauce: 50 g butter, 50 g wheat flour, 1 tablespoon whole pepper. … Into this the meat is layered with the cleaned, blanched, cut-up cabbage, along with the pepper, tied up in a small clean linen bag. Let it barely simmer under the lid until everything is tender, at least 3 hours."

The spelling has been modernized (in the original, kjøtt, vann, kål, lokk), and the amount of cabbage is now stated explicitly (3 kg).

So between 1914 and 1949, fårikål went from a simple, flour-dredged one-pot dish to a slightly more refined version with its own sauce – a small, concrete illustration of how Stor kokebok was systematized and modernized over the years, without the soul of the dish being lost.

How to use the recipe today

If you want to follow Erken, there are three things worth keeping in mind:

1. Don't rush. Fårikål is done when the meat comes away from the bone, not when the clock says so. Erken writes "at least three hours" in both editions.
2. Keep the fat. Fatty cuts give the dish its body. Skim it off at the end if you like.
3. Whole peppercorns. They're meant to be felt, not just tasted – just like in the linen bag from 1949.

Many people serve fårikål with boiled potatoes and flatbread. The leftovers are better the next day – something Erken's generation took for granted.

See the full recipe with both editions side by side: Fårikål