Notes on Mökki Life
Finnish vacations, blazing fish and a new newsletter
August, 2025
A small island off the coast of Pori, Finland called “Ounaskeri”
I have a contract with the Finnish gods.
I will happily live in this frequently dark corner of the world and put up with the 8 months of winter on the condition they give me a couple weeks of perfect sun some point during July and August.
They haven’t welched on that agreement, the gods, in all the years I’ve lived here.
This year they even sent the sun during our two weeks of holiday at my parents-in-law’s summer cottage (or mökki as it is called in Finnish). It was paradise. Now, I don’t think it does my carefully manufactured personal brand any favours if you get the wrong idea about this “summer cottage”.
I’m not talking about some kind of lavish getaway home. Having access to a mökki, whether because you own or rent one, is very typical of Finnish life. And a common part of Finnish summers is a vacation spent at mökki (as opposed to abroad). This is so typical that I just don’t think the term “staycation” could ever exist in Finland. Vacationing at home is just too common.
Most Mökki cottages, or at least the one I’m writing this newsletter from, are simple dwellings, and life in them may not be for everyone. Our Finnish summer cottage is warm and comfortable, but, as is typical, doesn’t have running water, for example. This explains why so many are built near bodies of water, be it the coast or one of Finland’s many lakes. A daily part of “mökki life” is the act of taking buckets, filling them with water, and transferring them to the kitchen or the sauna.
A favourite joke among Finns (if the comments to my social media posts are anything to go by), is that all mökki do have running water, to get it you just need to move quick enough with your bucket.
Not Finland’s finest gag, I grant you.
And as for the toilet, well you can expect the use of a good old fashioned out-house.
As much as I love sauna and the thrill of using an outhouse in the light of the midnight sun, my favourite part of mökki life is outdoor, open fire cooking. One of my favourite things to cook (which I’ve even made a video about before for this newsletter) is what is called ristiinnaulittua kalaa (crucified fish). This consists of nailing fish, either a fillet or butterflied whole fish, to a wooden plank and “blazing” it by the fire.
I made a video of this back in 2023, but never did write out a “recipe” or guide, so I thought I’d right that wrong today.
A guide to crucifying your fish
I start by getting my father in law to help make the open fire while I pin-bone and trim a rainbow trout. I then take a charred and battered arm-length plank of birch wood pock-marked with holes. I let this soak in water for 30 minutes to give it less chance of going up in flames. I then sprinkle the fish liberally with salt and sugar and let it cure for 30, maybe 40 minutes before washing it all clean with fresh brackish water. Then I nail it to the plank with wooden pegs that I whittle myself from birch branches, hammering the pegs into those holes I mentioned.
Once the fire is lively and full of flames and licking plenty of smoke, I find a spot where I can angle my crucified fish securely without getting too much nor too little heat. Eventually I find a way of angling it at almost 90 degrees. The shine of the fatty flesh occasionally blazes golden with the reflection of the flames. At this point, looking at it in position, the raw flesh starting to sweat in the growing heat, it really does look like some kind of torturous execution technique after all.
I stay here for about an hour as it cooks. Nothing but the simple joy of putting a ridiculous amount of effort into making infinitesimal improvements. Over this hour of crucifying the fish I tweak the angle of the plank, oh, I don’t know, maybe 50 times. I baste it with a little marinade improvised from vinegar and wild plants growing around the pit. Juniper berries, pine needles, and, of course, a little salt and sugar. If any part of the flesh gets too dark, I splash a little of the marinade directly on it, cooling the flesh enough that it doesn't burn further. As well as this marinade, I carefully place some pine and juniper branches on the fire itself. Using a little bouquet of birch leaves, I bellow the smoke over toward the fish. The smoke, I so hope I will be able to taste in the eating.
When the fish has firmed, and caught plenty of colour, I know it is cooked.
We eat the trout with potatoes boiled with dill stems and a criminal amount of salt. A creamy mushroom sauce, the type my mother in law so expertly makes, is perfect with it. Does it taste ever so slightly of juniper and pine? Maybe, if you think about it hard enough. And, somewhere, possibly emphasised by a great deal of my own hope and longing, there is a little bit of smoke as well. One thing is for sure it is delicious and a lot of fun to make.
And isn’t that the important thing when it comes to cooking outside? I think so.
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If you’re interested in my adventures exploring Finnish life, I have started documenting them on Instagram and TikTok. Would love for you to join me there.
NEWS
I’m starting a new newsletter!
It’s called Wil Reidie’s Weekly Catastrophe and it is going to be the home of all my essays that have nothing to do with food.
I’m not automatically subscribing any of you (you signed up for a food newsletter after all) so if you enjoy my essays not just recipes and are interested in reading (what I hope are funny and typically self-deprecating) essays about life in Finland, parenting, and maybe even my experience of military boarding school aged 13, then sign up here.
Cooking classes
After what I consider a really great launch and trial period for my online cooking classes, I’ve now increased the price to a point that running them is actually sustainable.
A quick thanks to all who bought classes during this launch period, I’ve loved meeting all of you.
And if you are interested in classes such as:
Nordic fish cooking
Line cook fundamentals
Nordic sweet bun masterclass
Just click below.
Finns and Latvians have a lot in common. If I have a chance to choose my last meal before being ushered into the Great Unknown, it will be something very similar. Possibly with a fresh cucumber and sour cream salad on the side.