As an American, husmanskost is analogous to soul food: unpretentious, home-cooked, hearty, and made with native ingredients. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to find unless you live here and with natives. Many meals my roommates make are classic husmanskost, but when you go to Uppsala most restaurants serve kebabs, sushi, burgers, and fancy expensive Scandinavian fusion cookery. Most tourists never get to taste real Swedish food.
When I took a trip to Bergen, Norway I knew I wanted real Norwegian food. Googling husmanskost + Bergen, I came up with Pingvinen:
If you associate contemporary Scandinavian dining with cloudberries, minimalist tableware and breathtakingly expensive menus, you'll find the Pingvinen (Penguin) restaurant in Bergen, Norway, a refreshing departure from form. Tucked into a corner of Bergen's university district, the year-old gastropub trades on unpretentious local fare, done the way it used to be. "People come in here and eat my food and you can see they get nostalgic," says 38-year-old chef Alma Valle. "They want to talk about it."
Walking in from the cold Bergen rain, Pingvinen immediately felt warm and welcoming. At the bar they translated the menu for us and recommended the seafood dishes. I had sea wolf with mussels and vegetables, which was incredibly delicious and satisfying. My friends and I chatted for hours at the candlelit bar.
Unfortunately, Norwegian beer-brewing is stifled by draconian laws, so the beer I washed it down with was a little tasteless.
Later on my trip I ate at a fancy gastropub, but it wasn't nearly half as satisfying as my meal at Pingvinen. If you want to really experience Norway's food culture, I suggest paying Pingvinen a visit.
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