funtastique

Agreeable.

While true, its the never-ending sarcasm that permeates through these idiotic questions that gets me.

To norwegians: Why should anybody care what I packed for lunch, mind personal business and stop looking into neighbors sandwich. While at it find better topics as conversation starter.

p.s. still while at it, the sarcasm, that most norwegians call 'humor', would be much more interesting cultural feat to explore in an article or 2.

Lets start with variety-pricing that EU gets and get it into NOR food stores, then we will talk rest.

Here goes Norwegian propaganda:

"BBC noticed us and our "SPECIAL NORWEGIAN WAY" of making sandwiches, oh my!"

https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/mads-og-ronald-lagde-vide...

p.s.And this sort of food is definitely not healthy.

p.p.s. "hot food" - It is not a big thing, until you consider the notion that sandwiches of any kind are one step away from cancer/ gastric ulcer inducing ramen packs and 'snickers' snack. Then you kinda start thinking how good are any sandwiches for you during the lunch time. Same goes for kids. This is why warm soup is anyday better than "fast-track unbalanced(no veggies) sandwich"(R) as described here/in the article.

Of course 'hot food' type makes a difference - balanced potatos, salad, meat/fish combo or a soup is 100 light years away from say 'hot pockets' fake food.

Wait, I'll google this...

Ah, here it goes: warm lunches: Finland, Spain, Denmark(?), Estonia, Lithuania, France, Italy, Sweden, UK, potentially others, not a complete list. [1]

p.s. Fun fact: Norwegian school lunches were supplied from Sweden during World War II, partly privately financed. Later, all public school lunches were discontinued, so most Norwegian students bring a packed lunch from home.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_meal

Haha, classic. Didn't pack your lunch? Your problem. We forgot to tell you to pack your lunch ("cause that's how we roll here in Norway") ? Your problem.

10 year expat here. Part which I don't get is how come "warm lunches" for schools typical/natural/expected in the rest of the developed world never caught up here. Equality uber-alles?

Oh boy, I would call it an "art of 'meaningless journalism'".

There are a numerous reasons, for the bland "bag lunch" (literally "the food pack" (matpakke)) - where do i start?

- the sandwich price in the shop is 4-8 quid, make the math, cook at home

- sky high prices in the cafes, etc

- weak selection of meats /cheeses in local shops (agricultural-protectionism/limited EU import)

- high prices on meats /cheeses in local shops + 4x of the EU average (agricultural-protectionism/limited EU import)

- the poor past + jante thing

- the stubbornness of general local population - "(grand)parents always did it like that"

- strong creeping low-profile nationalism - "norwegian way", "buy norwegian", "eat norwegian, etc"

- everybody is making "foodpack" why should i stick out

- 30 mins - not enough time for anything(cafe, etc)

- sparse cafes and cantinas etc.

- most cantinas serve just this specific company or this specific office building. More often than not, you are not expected to go into the other company's cantina.

- some work places are way too far from any cafe, etc.(say you are a tree logger)

- automatic thing, don't have to think much - going out (work, hiking, skiing, whatever) - take a foodpack. You dont know when/where you next meal will be "thinking" as most of Norway is non-urban.

Army rations taste probably like 10x better than the typical bland norwegian foodpack.

But you can continue to gourge on the "Norwegian" propaganda on bbc and elsewhere.

p.s. Downvote all you want, reality hurts, huh?