Kompe on My Mind
Date posted
19 May 2021
Globalized culture means that values and cultural artifacts move easily - amd faster amd faster - across cultural boundaries, and so it is only fitting that Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell's song "Georgia on my mind" introduces "kompe".
Greyish in color, and actually looking like that West African dish "fo fo" (which I do not like, and that is putting it mildly), kompe is not much to look at, consisting largely of potato and flour. Not much of a taste either, that is, if you ask the uninitiated. The US Embassy in Oslo some years back made a video where staff eat (in some cases) and for the rest commented upon traditional Norwegian specialities. Several staffers referred to kompe in no uncertain terms, stating that it looked and/or tasted like "wall-paper paste", "dough", and "cat brain". How sacrilegious is that!
However, if you ask a "Sørlending", that is, people like myself, who hail from Norway's southernmost coastal region, and more generally Agder (note 2), and you will hear a very different story. It is all in our upbringing, our socialization into the local food culture, and our approach to eating this dish. What make or brake it, is what come with it (including meat inside or not, and what you drink with it). Locals have endless discussions about the merit of eating, among other things, melted butter and/or "brunost" (goat cheese) with kompe. Over time regional approaches to what to eat together with kompe have developed. I belong to the Agder faction who favors butter and lingonberries, and nothing else, together with water or, for a few dedicated diehards, millk. Some are known to recount famous mythical stories of "kompefester" (kompe parties) where they downed 10 (or was it 16?) kompe.
When I travel abroad, I sometimes bring along the (in)famous (depending on your point of view) Norwegian "brunost" (brown cheese), made from goatmilk. Kompe is a different story altrogether, as they don't travel well. So, it is essential to stock up on tastes and memories prior to traveling (as now, when I will shortly travel to Bulgaria for work). An otherwise interesting food culture, Bulgaria has yet to appreciate the art of making and eating kompe. My ancestors the Vikings, who made forays into Bulgaria, clearly didn't manage to convince them – peacefully or otherwise – of the superior food that kompe is.
To dig further into world culture, it is not at all apt to argue that "to eat kompe or not, that is the question". It is actually appropriate, considering that Hamlet's Elsinore (Kronborg Castle in Denmark) to a large extent was built from stone plundered from destroyed Norwegian monasteries and churches, courtesy the Danish colonial power. Hamlet of course traveled to these northern lands, and he for sure ate kompe before returning to Kronborg castle. In this way he contributed to spreading kompe to the world!
Lars Soeftestad
Notes
(1) Image credit: Lars Soeftestad
(2) Relevant Devblog articles: "Devblog om Agder" (reviews and links to all articles about Agder) at: https://devblog.no/no/article/devblog-om-agder
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U2tQCWCErM
(4) Permalink: https://devblog.no/en/article/kompe-my-mind
(5) This article was published 19 May 2021. It was revised 22 June 20235
