Kama (food)
Kama (Estonian), also talkkuna or piapo (Finnish) is an Estonian and Finnish dish based on milled cereals and legumes, traditionally prepared and eaten uncooked as fast food by combining the fine flour mixture with just cow milk or buttermilk. The main ingredient of kama is the "kama flour" (kamajahu, talkkunajauho) which nowadays typically contains a mixture of roasted barley, rye, oat and pea flour.
Historically, kama was a farmer dish, it originated from southern Estonia, and it was made slightly differently in each geographic area: it could consist of oats, peas, beans or wheat, which were mixed together depending on the region.[1] The oat flour may be completely replaced by wheat flour, or kibbled black beans may be added to the mixture. In Finland, talkkunajauho is made by first steaming grains, then grinding them up and finally roasting them.[2]
The kamajahu flour mixture was a non-perishable, easy-to-carry "food that could be quickly fashioned into a stomach-filling snack by rolling it into butter or lard"; it did not require baking, as it was already roasted.[3][user-generated source?] Nowadays, Estonians kama remains popular and many Estonians consider it a distinctive "national food".[4]
In Finland, it is nowadays also used for making some desserts, and it is mostly eaten for breakfast mixed with milk, buttermilk or kefir as mush.[5] It is frequently sweetened with sugar and especially with blueberry, more rarely with other fruits or honey or served unsweetened. It is also used for milk or sour desserts, together with the forest berries typical of Finland.[citation needed]
Similar flour mixtures
[edit]A similar product to kamajahu is the Swedish skrädmjöl, a flour consisting exclusively of roasted oats which is traditionally made in the Swedish province of Värmland. It was brought there by Forest Finns.[6]
In several Turkic languages, similar flours are called talqan, but these are made of coarse or finely milled flour from roasted barley or wheat, and typically do not contain legumes.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Moora, Aliise. Eesti talurahva vanem toit I. Tallinn: Valgus (publisher), 1980, p. 157 (in Estonian).
- ^ "Talkkunasta uusi vanha tuttu". yle.fi (in Finnish). 13 December 2011. Retrieved 2021-09-04.
- ^ "Estonian Secret. Kama. Estonian "muesli"". Estonian Cuisine. Eesti Toit. 2017-08-11. Retrieved 2021-09-04.
- ^ Eesti Toit infoserver v2.0.3.0 Archived 2007-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Rantanen kama flour 1 kg". Suomikauppa.fi. Archived from the original on 2021-09-04. Retrieved 2021-09-04.
- ^ "Skogsfinnar". Minoritet.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2021-09-04.