Picture the scene: it's Christmas Day, and you're making holiday dinner for your family. You have your turkey and your stuffing and your apple pie and your egg nog, and the gifts have all been opened and everything is just hunky-dory. Then Aunt Sally comes in with the side dish she made, puts it on the table, announces what it is, and freaks out all the kids.
That's what they serve at Northern Delicacies, a takeout restaurant and grocery store in Brooklyn. They also sell fish balls and salty licorice.
My advice? Don't serve them on Christmas Day. Or, if you are going to serve them, do it before Christmas Eve, so the kids won't think you did something to Santa's reindeer after they dropped off the gifts that night.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-23-2006 @ 1:36PM
Carolyn said...
If you're Scandinavian or of Scandinavian descent, reindeer balls, salty licorice or fish balls are pretty normal fare!
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10-23-2006 @ 3:06PM
Morgan said...
The Village Voice issue that this post is from is an excellent issue, a "must keep". Link and read the rest of the "best of " food catagories. You will be laughing and taking notes for your next trip to NYC.
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10-23-2006 @ 6:49PM
Mella said...
Salty licorice is the most terrible food I have ever tried. While in Denmark, a friend handed me a candy and said it was her favorite. I asked what it was and she said she couldn't describe in English for me. Well, it was a brand of salty licorice named "Dracula". I have never tasted anything so foul in all of my life. Being painfully polite, I kept myself from gagging and quickly swallowed it so I wouldn't have to taste it anymore. I would eat mountains of reindeer meatballs and barrels of fish balls (both of which sound quite yummy to me), but the very idea of salted licorice will turn my stomach as long as I live.
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10-23-2006 @ 11:41PM
Adriane said...
Oh Mella, I completely agree- that salty licorice is absolutely awful. I tried some when my friend had an exchange student come from Finland..I don't think I even swallowed it (she didn't expect me to like it, and thus wasn't offended in the least, thank goodness!) The only way I can describe it is black licorice steeped in soy sauce. Blerg.
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10-24-2006 @ 8:59AM
Jamar said...
Salty licorice- my school has a large international population so sometimes I'll see one of the Scandinavian students handing out this stuff (I tried one too- I was told at the time "try it, you'll like it"- how wrong she was, but I had to be polite because everyone else around her liked it) and usually gagging faces afterwards (happening less often, now- I don't see that happen anymore). The Scandinavian students also have debates about the meatballs in the local Ikea when someone brings those up (one student from Denmark says they're too dry, another from Finland says they're too greasy) and a couple of other things.
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