Trollkrem is a very easy to make dessert. The main ingredient is lingonberries.

Lingonberries in the wild

Did you know the word lingon originates from the Swedish word for the species, and this is derived from the Norse lyngr, or lyng in Norwegian. This is the name of the plant family Ericacae (heather family). The Norwegian name of the berries is “tyttebær”, and this is what is called lingonberries in English.

In modern times many countries adopt a lot of English words in their language, because of globalization, but did you know a lot of English words have roots from Norse language dating back to the Viking Age? It’s funny to look up etymology in the dictionary. This was the fun fact of the day, and I won’t go further into that.

Me and my mom went picking berries this beautiful autumn day.

My mother and my grandmother have always been picking a lot of berries every year. I like to spend time with my family and do things they used to do growing up. It is nice to listen to stories of what they did when they were young, and listen to their knowledge of how to make food from fresh ingredients you pick in the wilderness or from the garden. In this modern day where there are limitless resources and an abundance of food in the store, knowledge about the variety of goods from nature and how to use them is becoming scarce.

When I grew up, I was so lucky to get desserts from my mom and my grandmother in every shape, colour and taste. Now I want to learn more about the traditional Norwegian cuisine, bring this with me and carry this forth. Food can be the magic social glue of a culture and civilization. To prepare a meal and eat together with loved ones means a lot.

We got a little harvest of both lingonberries and blueberries

Now we have the ingredients, the next step is to make the trollkrem. Whip egg whites, add sugar and maybe some vanilla. The berries are very sour, so to balance this you should not be modest with the sugar. When the egg whites have become all big and fluffy you add the berries and mix it good. The colour will be nice and pink, like straight out of a dreamy fairy tale. The fragrant smell of sour freshness will fill the room.

Fluffy and yummy trollkrem and waffles

In Norway a normal type food to serve accompanying coffee and tea is waffles. Waffes are excellent to combine with trollkrem. Our type of waffles are a soft type, best served hot.

What is the name trollkrem? Troll cream. I actually don’t know the story behind this, but we have a long tradition in Norway of story telling and fairy tales. We have numerous fairy tales of trolls, and our culture has more or less evolved around these stories, that’s why many of the names of places and things are inspired of our fairy tales.

We even have a family amusement park for trolls and fairy tales

There is this story everybody loves about Askeladden’s eating competition with a troll. It ends with Askeladden putting his backpack on his stomach, and putting more food in the backpack than what he ate himself. The troll was big, dumb and had bad eyesight, so he didn’t see this. After a while, when the backpack was full, Askeladden took his knife and cut a hole in it. This way he could continue putting food in his backpack, and he would eat more than the big ugly troll. When the troll was full, Askeladden told him to do the same as he did. Eventually the troll took the knife and cut a hole in his stomach. This was the last thing this troll ever did and he died of the wound. This troll would never again make trouble for the humans walking in the mountains and the humans lived happily ever after.

Now you know how to make trollkrem, if you ever meet a troll in the mountains you can have an eating competition to see who can eat the most trollkrem.

Here is a link to an English translation of the full fairy tale