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How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

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Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#191

Post by tallanvor »

atombender wrote: post #93
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of America will argue with this.

Norwegian living the U.S. here. It's pretty different when you consider the average supermarket. The breads you get in your average American supermarket (Giant, Safeway, Shoprite and so on) are either the pre-sliced, packaged kind, which are largely flavourless and full of preservatives and sugar, or the stuff in the bakery section, which tend to be Italian-style white bread rolls, bagels and so on. You can find bett…

I just want to point out that you can get very horrible bread in Norway as well. In the image you link to, you have Loff at the bottom left of the screen. That stuff is even more tasteless than the average American bread. It also gets more prominent placement, at least from what I've seen in Oslo grocery stores.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#192

Post by pierot »

This is almost exactly like in Belgium. We do have similar word for på leg which is ‘beleg’ or ‘toespijs’. And we also pack it in the morning, 3 or 4 slices. It is not as beautifully wrapped in paper with in-between papers, though.

Moreover, we have decent bread in Belgium. And it doesn’t come in a plastic bag. It’s more similar to the bread described in the article about bread in the UK seen on HN frontpage some days ago.

I’ve seen people stating in the comments that this is heavy on calories. But that’s entirely not true. The butter is probably soja based, the cheese and meat are thinly spread.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#193

Post by tyfon »

billh wrote: post #114
grawprog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American milk also has anti-biotics and bovine growth hormone in it. I was fairly disappointed when they recently started allowing American milk to be sold here. Luckily it has to be labelled.

This is simply not true. Milk is tested frequently and antibiotics are very rarely found [1]. Milk tankers that test positive for antibiotics are discarded and this milk never enters into the human consumption stream. 1. https://www.fda.gov/federal-state-local-tribal-and-territori...

Who tests this, the FDA or the ones with their income dependent on these test being negative?

Also the websites only talk about maintaining a database over this not that you need to discard the milk if positive.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#194

Post by collyw »

username90 wrote: post #176
arcosdev wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italian Canadian, living in Norway. You have no idea the level of mangia cake going on here. It's like no one's palate evolved past preschool.

Being happy eating boring food is a superpower, lets you focus on more interesting parts of life.

Eating good food is one of the interesting parts of life for me.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#195

Post by Goz3rr »

zabzonk wrote: post #27
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Dutch people just eat sandwiches for lunch. Typically just bread and something on it. Some offices have cantines and many of them are terrible. I was a Dutch office worker for 10 years in different offices and ate all kinds of different things. Now I work from home and continue to eat sandwiches almost every day. I just like them. As for the Chinese food. You need to go into a big city and eat it. Don't eat Dutc…

> Most Dutch people just eat sandwiches for lunch. And so did I when I worked there, but I made my own. If I forgot to do so, I nicked one of my Dutch colleagues sandwiches - they couldn't stand the cafeteria ones either. Chinese food was in Utrecht and Amsterdam - it bore no resemblance to the food you get in London, and you never saw ethnic Chinese eating there, unlike in London. I'm not trying to be racist about t…

Because what we tend to call Chinese is more Indonesian than Chinese and very dulled down on top of that

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#196

Post by yiyus »

swarnie_ wrote: post #166
camillomiller wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian, I am profoundly offended by this statement and most of the comments in this thread :D

I've worked in Italy a few times and i just can't get my head around it. One sleepy little town basically shut down between 12:30 and 14:30 every day. Everyone went home for lunch but also the majority of the local shops shut too. How do you get anything done??

Two blocks of 4 hours of work with a break of 2 hours between them is not a bad division of time.

You do not need much more time to refocus after a two hour break than after a half an hour break, but the two hours break and the larger meal allows you to work until longer in the evening. In many cases, you can even spend time with your family during this middle of day break, so you do not have that necessity to leave early.

I have followed the two different lifestyles in the south and north of Europe. Northern people tell you how their system allows them to leave early and have more time for family or whatever, but truth is people in the south spent way more time with family and friends. Also, south people usually work more hours, but it's the north people who get the job done.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#197

Post by abdullahkhalids »

swarnie_ wrote: post #166
camillomiller wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian, I am profoundly offended by this statement and most of the comments in this thread :D

I've worked in Italy a few times and i just can't get my head around it. One sleepy little town basically shut down between 12:30 and 14:30 every day. Everyone went home for lunch but also the majority of the local shops shut too. How do you get anything done??

I guess they haven't been defeated by the 40 hour minimum work week imposed by modern capitalism. As long as they are happy, who cares when they work.

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#198

Post by lb1lf »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #57
GuiA wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of sad to see the meal culture eroding in other parts of the world. The “quickly ingest some food at your desk so you can keep working” mentality has taken hold. I’m French, and at my first office job - almost 15 years ago - the entire office was empty from noon till 2p. People would go get their kids at school, have lunch with them at home, and bring them back before returning to work. Or child free people…

The meal culture is probably eroding because of economical reasons. We're now under the constant reminder from our employers that there's always a bunch of people outside ready to do your work without lunch break for less money.

-That really depends on where you are.

In Scandinavia, lunch breaks are mandated by law. In Norway, if you work more than 5.5 hours, your employer must give you at least 30 minutes off (unpaid) to have lunch. If the nature of your workplace is such that you cannot leave work, the lunch break is paid. [0]

Hence no desperate souls at the gate, ready to take my place without demanding any lunch break.

Also, as other scandinavians have pointed out - this is not a recent measure to make life easier on your employer; it's just the way it has always been.

[0] https://lovdata.no/NLE/lov/2005-06-17-62/§section10-9

Re: How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

#199

Post by christkv »

I grew up with matpakke and the 1/4 of milk every day and I hated it. It was depressing. Only good side was you got more time to play outside at school since you just wolfed down the food to get it over with.

My kids go to a school in Spain and they get a 3 course meal every day for about 5 EUR a day. As a parent its great because you know they've had a full complete meal every day and you can just make a small evening meal.

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