Fine dining — Finnish style
QUESTION
Are any popular Finnish brands sold in British supermarkets?
FINLAND has terrific food, and it would be great to see it in our supermarkets.
One example of the traditional food of which the Finns are fiercely proud is rye bread, Ruisleipa, made from sour dough. It’s the staple of the Finnish diet. They also enjoy Karjalanpiirakka or Karelian pies, made with rye flour and filled with potatoes, rice or carrots. Finns like to put a homemade egg butter spread on top.
Kalakukko are rye bread Cornish pastyshaped pies that are commonly filled with
muikku, a small herring-like fish found in the lake district of eastern Finland. They are considered an entire packed lunch in a pie.
Grillimakkara are fat sausages made for grilling, which are eaten with mustard and washed down with beer.
Korvapuusti, which means ‘slapped ears’, are cinnamon buns. While Finland doesn’t hold a patent on this type of bun, they make the best.
Also not to be missed while on a visit to Finland is Salmiakki (salty liquorice), to which almost all Finns are addicted, and Fazer Blue chocolate, a perennial favourite. Fazer is Finland’s biggest consumer company. Some of its products are available through Ocado, including Fazer Blue chocolate and Dule toffees.
Waitrose stocks the Finnish health food brand Arctic Power Berries, which produces cranberry, blackcurrant, lingonberry and blueberry powders. These can be added to breakfast cereals and smoothies for a nutritional boost.
The only product I have found widely on sale in all the major British supermarkets is Finn Crisp original thin sourdough rye crispbread, which is made by the Vaarsan group of Helsinki.
Jan Thompson, Canterbury, Kent.
QUESTION
Did the Nazis arrest or kill any highly decorated World War I Jewish army and navy officers?
ANTI-SEMITISM was rife in Germany from 1885 to 1914, so there was not a single Jewish officer in the Prussian army. That changed briefly at the start of World War I when many patriotic Jews enlisted, and eventually there were 3,000 Jewish officers, though all low ranking.
Despite this, there were rumours of shirking. When victory became less assured, a stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory arose attributing the setbacks to traitorous Jews and communists.
This was disseminated by the defeated military leadership, seeking to avoid personal consequences for their policies.
From 1917, the German high command issued Judenzählung, a census designed to confirm accusations of a lack of patriotism among German Jews.
What they found (but did not publish) was that more than 100,000 German Jewish military personnel served in the German Army during World War I, of whom 12,000 were killed in action.
The Iron Cross was awarded to 18,000 German Jews during the war.
Following the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933, Jewish veterans were initially protected against dismissal from government jobs after an intervention on their behalf by German President Paul von Hindenburg.
His death in August 1934 ended this protection and Jewish veterans were dismissed from public service and excluded from German citizenship.
The Nazis attempted to eradicate all evidence of Jewish soldiers fighting for Germany in World War I.
In October 1935, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels peremptorily announced: ‘It is forbidden to list the names of fallen Jews on memorials and memorial plaques for the fallen of the world war.’
The most famous Jewish officer was Ernst Hess — Hitler’s commanding officer during World War I. He survived World War II by going into exile. Veteran status conferred no protection on German Jews in the Holocaust and thousands were murdered. They included Berthold Guthmann, who was born in 1893 and volunteered for military service in World War I, as did his two brothers (one of whom was killed at Verdun).
He became observer and gunner on military aircraft and was awarded the Iron Cross (second class), the Tap ferke its m ed ail le (medal for bravery) and the V er wu n de ten abzeich en (awarded to those wounded in the line of duty). He became a successful lawyer in Wiesbaden and was the secular leader of the local Jewish community during its darkest years.
He was murdered at Auschwitz on September 30, 1944. His son Paul was killed at Mauthausen concentration camp in March 1945.
Timothy Wiseman, Hale, Cheshire.
QUESTION
How powerful was the first atomic bomb?
I VISITED Los Alamos on holiday in 1988 and bought a book on the subject.
The amount of TNT detonated on May 7, 1945 (undertaken so that instruments could be calibrated) was 100 tons, and the flash from the explosion was seen 60 miles away. But it would be eclipsed on July 16, 1945, by the detonation of the first A-bomb.
The scientists did not know what the yield from the bomb would be, and a pool was organised asking for their predictions. Theoretical physicist Edward Teller predicted 45,000 tons and Oppenheimer a mere 200 tons.
Oppenheimer had a ten dollar bet against the monthly salary of explosives expert George Kistiakowsky that the device wouldn’t work at all.
Project consultant I.I. Rabi eventually won with his guess of 18,000 tons, the actual amount being 21,000 tons.
W. G. Crawshaw, Eccleston, Lancs.