The perfect meal?
From The Great Scandinavian Baking Book:
“The formal Finnish coffeetable…is served in three courses. The first course is always a sweetened yeast bread, often a braid, and often flavored with cardamon. With the first course you have a cup of coffee and sample a cookie or two. The second course is a pound cake or another unfrosted cake baked in a fancy tube pan. You sample the cake and a couple of cookies with another cup of coffee. The third course is a fancy filled cake, which you sample by itself, with a third cup of coffee. With the fourth cup of coffee, you sample anything you haven’t already tasted, or go back for seconds. As with the flowers in the centerpiece, there should be an uneven number of choices on the table. Seven is considered perfect.”
