Pirkanmaa, Finland

Finland

Pirkanmaa sits in southwestern Finland, with Tampere at its heart — the country's third-largest city, built on an isthmus between two lakes. The region's defining food is Mustamakkara, a thick blood-and-rye sausage eaten hot from market stalls with cold lingonberry jam and a glass of milk. The recipe traces back to 19th-century Tottijärvi farmhouses. The cooking method, ground pork and pig blood mixed with crushed rye and stuffed into intestine, made it possible to put every part of the slaughtered animal to use through a Finnish winter. Two market kiosks in Tampere — at Tammelantori and Laukontori — still serve it the way it has been served for seventy years: in U-shaped horseshoes called menopaluut, weighed in euros rather than grams.

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Sausages from Pirkanmaa, Finland

Mustamakkara

Mustamakkara

Pirkanmaa, Finland

A thick Finnish blood sausage from Tampere, made by mixing pork, pig blood, crushed rye and barley flour, stuffed into a natural intestine casing and cooked through. At the market kiosks you order by euro amount rather than gram weight; a single whole U-shaped portion is called a menopaluu, a round-trip ticket, after its shape. Eaten hot, fresh out of the kettle, paired with cold red lingonberry jam and a glass of cold milk. The contrast — warm dark spongy sausage against sweet-tart jam — is the whole point.

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