All about Eve - and Mämmi

Bette Davis glittered in movie All About Eve in 1951 (won 6 Oscars). Finns have been making Mämmi for Easter much longer. There´s a strange connection with those two - not necessarily the best looks, but weirdly delicious...

Mämmi is made of water, malt and rye flour with syrup and some orange peel flavoring. Process of making Mämmi is very slow, including first boiling and then baking in the oven for ages. Traditionally Mämmi is baked in a low, square box made out of birch tree bark and called "ropponen". Birch tree bark is very beautiful and pliable and in the spring when Mämmi is made, also easy to loosen from the trees. The bark gave also its own little extra taste to Mämmi, which is missing from the modern, industrial cardboard-ropponen versions. Making a mämmiropponen is a highlight of Traditional Finnish Arts and Crafts!

<--- Bette Davis and her eyes.



The result of this elaborate kitchen exercise is extremely thick, blackish brown stuff which is eaten refrigerator cold with cream and a sprinkle of sugar. The visual looks of Mämmi should not scare you! (Same can be said about Bette Davis.) Taste of Mämmi is uniquely sweet, maybe something along an ultra-dense full-grain brownie soaked in Guinness with a dash of Orange Juice. Yummy!

Because Mämmi is Mooses´s childhood favourite, it is occasionally referred to in this blog. Mooses eats it once a Decade.

A portion of Mämmi, right out of ropponen --->
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Bette Davis was a carbon-based life form born 1908 and after an astonishing career in films, died in 1989. Her famous looks gave inspiration to Kim Carnes´s song: Bette Davis Eyes.

Mooses says: Have a Mämmi and a Smile!