Helsinki Street Eats
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HELSINKI STREET EATS By Bryan Boyer & Dan Hill With Ville Tikka, Nuppu Gävert, Tea Tonnov & Kaarle Hurtig Menu Background Why Street Food? Why Helsinki? Why Now?—2 Four stories Esplanadi, 1938—9 about how we Ullanlinna, 1960—10 eat Kallio, 2011—11 Tähtitornimäki, 2011—12 How we got to A bit of history—14 where we are First Golden Age—16 today Regulations emerge—21 From Prohibition to the Olympics—22 Social mores & bee!urgers—28 A second Golden Age dawns?—34 What’s next? Opportunity Space—37 Supporting A night on the town in 2011—55 documents A day in the city—69 How to read a hodari—85 So now what?—94 Etc. References & further reading—96 List of plates—97 Credits & contacts—98 1 The story of street food in Helsinki connected and increasingly urban nation, is inextricably tied to food in Finland in and of Helsinki defining itself as a contem- general, and so caught up in deep currents porary European city. of regulation, politics, commerce, national Imagining potential futures of street food identity and culture. As food is cultural in Helsinki, we first step back to consider artefact as well as sustenance and resource, the broader developments related to food its story is a manifestation of the nation de- and drink in the context of the last 150 fining itself, of becoming an industrialised, years. While this short publication cannot 2 WHY STREET FOOD? WHY HELSINKI? WHY NOW? go into the depth this history genuinely capable of changing very quickly and with warrants the concept of ’path dependency’ great effect. But in uncovering the past, we tells us that our futures are likely to emerge may find traditional approaches or long- from ingredients already present in our forgotten precursors which are ripe for culture today. reinvention. We also know that change can be sudden Street food is interesting because it is and rapid, and that street food can be a highly visible, accessible, and a carrier for volatile, even mercurial, part of culture, cultural change. While the ‘new Nordic 3 ‘City Hall Square’, 1820. The tori, or marketsquare, has remained the focus of Helsinki’s street food for centuries, but should it be the only place? Ravintolapäivä suggests a range of alternatives ... cuisine’ with its focus on local and seasonal own culture, and allows visitors an easy ingredients is radically re-shaping how way into foreign cultures. people think about fine food around the Helsinki has been chosen as a way of world, and while the City’s culinary culture filtering the subject matter and focusing strategy will enable organic food to flourish the conversation. In terms of quantities and within the city’s päiväkoti (daycare) system, attention it represents the epicentre of Fin- the effects of these trends and strategies land’s food systems. While there are many are initially within a limited ecosystem, other food traditions within the different only addressing particular strands of regions and cultures that comprise Finland, society and so with a slow trickle-down to as a ‘pocket metropolis’ the reasonable wider culture. scale Helsinki can work as a prism through However, street food—late night grub, which to observe these systems. coffee stands, mobile kitchens, kiosks, Sitra is interested in understanding the hole-in-the-wall sandwich joints, market systems of everyday life, in order to assess stalls—affects a wider culture through its how best to support, influence, and invest sheer everydayness. It is everywhere and into them to enable a greater capacity for forms an integral part of our public life, our sustainable well-being. civic spaces, our streets, our neighbour- As Sitra’s Strategic Design Unit, we are hoods. Street food also tends to require interested in exploring the possibility of smaller investments, with individual busi- tangible prototypes to catalyze strategic ness operating at a smaller scale and allow- impact. We pursue this through several ing innovation to happen at an accelerated tools and approaches, including the ‘studio’, pace. Seen from this view, it is a breeding a week long engagement designed to distill ground for innovation that can percolate diverse inputs into a clear vision. A core upwards. The speed of street food is excit- component of the studio is the ‘challenge ing, but can it be more than fast food? briefing’, a document produced to unpack a While street food can affect culture, it is particular problem area. This deliberately also a representation of our culture through stops short of framing detailed questions, its diversity, quality, footprint, and person- as those will emerge through subsequent ality. It helps individuals articulate their prototyping. 4 Why? We cannot understand the potential futures of street food in Helsinki without considering developments over the last 150 years This particular document is a form of ‘challenge briefing’ presently without a studio, a summary of thinking, case studies and research in order to better understand the architecture of the problem. We hope that it provides a few clues as to core is- sues and next steps, as well as uncovering precursors, but is not intended to directly engage with policy, governance or the market at this point. That will follow as our work on this topic evolves. But we start with some stories. Why? 5 6 FOUR SHORT STORIES 7 8 Esplanadi, 1938 Snow falls softly on Esplanadi, dulling in Helsinki, designed as a jewel to top the noise from a passing truck. German the ‘Industrial Palace’ building. A liveried soldiers are heading north, fresh o! the black porter welcomes in well-heeled SS Ariadne passenger steamer pu!ing members of the Helsinki set, shuttling smoke into the cold night air at as it sits in to and fro in a series of small elevators the South Harbour. from ground floor to the birch-veneered The bar at the Kämp Hotel is warm, interiors above. The menu is also French- noisy and packed by comparison, full inspired, but peppered with the first of journalists, academics, politicians, dashes of a Finnish fine cuisine: boiled wealthy industrialists and their wives, halibut with hollandaise sauce; smoked and what is still a relatively new breed in salmon with spinach. Finland: international tourists here to see Down below Savoy, a man sways on a the ‘Daughter of the Baltic’. There is much street corner, his hat and heavy overcoat chatter about the rumour that Greta casting a bulky shadow across the snow Garbo has been seen vacationing in the as he glugs pontikka from a bottle. The Åland Islands. It’s early evening. Cigarette prohibition act had been rescinded in smoke curls around the bar. Helsinki’s Finland a few years earlier, but years of bourgeoisie are picking at canapés to illegal distilling of pontikka has left a accompany their cocktails, vol-au-vents healthy—or unhealthy—surplus of lethal prepared by the hotel’s French cooks. home-brew on the market. He draws a few Across the grass and gravel promenade admonishing glances from the elegant outside Kämp, the glass terrace of the ladies chattering in the doorway of Kämp, Savoy restaurant glows golden in the of which he is entirely oblivious. dark sky. Savoy is a year old and still the The snow falls… talk of the town. The restaurant had been architect Alvar Aalto’s first commission Four short stories 9 Ullanlinna, 1960 The woman shifts nervously from foot That the new owner of the restaurant is to foot outside the restaurant’s doorway. a woman, Mrs. Paukka, is an irony also not Above her, a green neon sign sputters lost on her, but it makes no di!erence. For into life, casting the restaurant’s name in all her progressive attitudes, the woman flowing script across the elegant square, had never been to a restaurant before, although the sun seems to have no inten- just as no-one in her family had. But she’d tion of disappearing anytime soon. Still, it heard about Mrs. Paukka’s new menu—in was late, and he was late. particular the crispy fried Baltic her- She dares not go into the restaurant rings—and had pestered the man about without him. This is not simply a mat- going for weeks. ter of etiquette, or timidity on her part; The sharp new kiosk across the square, it’s the law. In Finland, women are not owned by the restaurant and the only one allowed in restaurants unless accompa- in the country with an alcohol license, is nied by a man, so she waits. She finds this full of men sitting, smoking, drinking, eat- faintly o!ensive, as she’s heard that the ing gelato, workers from banks and docks reasoning is that women in a restaurant alike gathered around the small tables or bar on their own could only be there for under the trees. She feels their eyes occa- one thing, and it wasn’t the food. sionally upon her. The woman pulls a copy Dancing isn’t allowed either, for similar of Kaunis Koti from her bag. She’d just reasons; this she finds more ridiculous bought the magazine from the R-Kioski than o!ensive. There had been some on Korkeavuorenkatu, and had intended progress, however: after the Helsinki to save it for the tram ride home, but it Olympics, Alko, who set such rules, had would prove more useful as a screen to deigned to allow the introduction of hide behind for the moment. something equally licentious: the bar A skid of leather shoes on the cobbles stool. behind her, accompanied by “Anteeksi!”... 10 Four short stories Kallio, 2011 The death threat is both unlikely and damage will follow.