A little (black) bit of heaven - Pieni (musta) pala taivasta

There is one sure way to please an expatriate Finn. Just send her/him some of this, and you will be best friends forever. My mom brought this with her to Turkey for us, by my humble request. I love this stuff!!! It is called SALMIAKKI and it is salty liquorice. It must be salty. Non of this black vine gum stuff you can buy in other countries. You need to taste the salt. Yummy!


Here is a selection of salmiakki. It is a small selection, but introduces some good basic salmiakki facts for you. On the top is Pirkka salmiakki in traditional salmiakki shape (see, I do not even know the geometrical word to describe the shape. I just always call this salmiakki shape. Diamond shape, perhaps?). Next to it on the right upper corner is some new stuff, Festivaldi. I have not tasted it before. The pieces are soft and big, and very easy to eat. It is not very strong tasting. Pirkka salmiakki is more chewy, and I like the chewing part. Sometimes salmiakki gets stuck in your teeth and then you just hope no one will ask you a question when you work your way through the candy. At three o'clock we have again Pirkka brand, this time the candy is very small. It is not too chewy, but I prefer bigger size. I want to have my mouth full of this delight!
On the bottom of the picture is again Festivaldi, but this time it is soft sweet liquorice. Wrong! I did not like this as much. It was sweet (tasteless), and I fed it to the children. On the left you see very traditional Salmiakki Alfabet. This is really good. Always a good choice. Chewy, salty, thin and very very tasty.

As you can see, I opened the packages before I thought of taking the picture. Salmiakki has that effect on you. You just cannot wait!

Here is the black gold without the bags. Traditional salmiakki shaped salmiakki on the left, then the big soft ones, and the smaller round Pirkka salmiakki.



You can actually see the letters here. They are great for making fun words, and children always want to eat the first letter of their name.


I wanted to write a message for you, but because I love this stuff, I had eaten most of the letters already. I managed to find four letters to make a very important Finnish word: äiti. Mother.

If you are lucky and have friends in Finland, you might manage to get some of this goodness. Remember, the real salmiakki grows only in Finland!