HS found out how laskiaispu divides people.
Finland is a divided country.
Some people want their laskain buns with jam, others with almond paste. And this is debated around the country every year.
Arguments about taste can continue, but based on the sales figures, the winner is clear: the most popular filling for laskias bun is jam, and almonds are only popular in a very precisely defined area.
HS asked for sales statistics of laskias buns from Kesko, S group and Lidl. All three chains reported that the sales of jam balls were significantly higher than those filled with almonds.
At S Group, jam-filled buns made up 61 percent of sales last year, almond-filled buns 24 percent. The rest are buns whose flavors are not specified in the name information.
The only exception is Ostrobothnia. There, Vöyri, Uusikaarlepyy, Mustasaari, Närpiö, Maalahti and Korsnäs form an almond belt, with only the lonely jam town of Vaasa in the middle.
Why does almond only taste good on the coast?
Reason for the formation of the almond belt can be found in history.
Laskiaispulla has its roots in late medieval Europe, the Hotel and Restaurant Museum tells.
In Central Europe, buns were eaten just before the start of Lent, and the bun tradition was carried over to Finland from Sweden, where almond paste was established as a filling.
It is known that buns flavored with almond paste were sold in Finland as early as the 19th century. Unlike today, no cream was used with the buns, but they were enjoyed with warm milk.
At the beginning of the last century, cream was added to the bottle, but due to regulations during the Second World War, the combination only became common from the 1950s.
Milk changed to cream, and in Finland, almond mass to jam. The reason could be both the availability of almonds and the price. The Swedes continued to be a nation of almond pulp.
The division has remained, even though today ready-made buns are the same price and almonds can be found in different forms even in smaller stores. Jam filling has become a tradition for us.
According to some sources found by the museum, the use of almond pulp is now more widely based on language. Swedish speakers prefer the style of their western neighbor.
Looking at the map, the language reasoning seems reasonable.
For example, according to the most recent population statistics, 85 percent of the residents of Uudenkaarlepy, which prefers almonds, spoke Swedish. In the neighboring municipality of Kauhava, everything was the other way around: 0.6 percent spoke Swedish and buns were filled with jam.
As a traditional delicacy, laskias bun takes on new dimensions every year. In the photo, this season's trend buns.
Finland the most popular laskia bun filling is therefore jam. It's harder to argue about this now, but luckily there's still plenty to argue about in laskiaisbul.
Should the bun be eaten by hand or with a fork, should the hat be removed or should the whole beauty be shoved into the mouth at once? And then there are still new trends, kinuski fillings and flaky croissants. What should we think about them?
Fierce round table discussions are allowed to continue.
Correction February 11, 2024 at 9:20 a.m.: Corrected the part of the article that tells about adding cream to laskiais buns. This happened in the last century, not the last millennium, as initially written.
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