How tacos became Norway’s national comfort food
26 minutes ago
Taco!/ Lars Petter Pettersen
An oil boom, a supermarket opportunity and decades of adaptation transformed the taco from a Tex-Mex import into one of Norway’s most beloved traditions
It is Friday night in Bergen, Norway. Emil has rushed home from work and is busy laying the table while his wife Sofie sprinkles seasoning over a dish and their children carry bowls of toppings to the dining room. Like many families across the country, they’re gathering for a cherished weekly ritual
But they aren’t eating dried cod or fresh Atlantic salmon. They’re eating tacos
The start of Norway’s weekly taco obsession
Every Friday, millions of Norwegians take part in tacofredag (Taco Friday), a custom that has become a fixture of Norwegian family life
This distinctly Norwegian tradition began thousands of miles away, in the US state of Texas. When Norway started drilling for oil in the North Sea in the late 1960s, it needed expertise from abroad. Among the arrivals were Texan oil workers and consultants, who brought not only knowledge of drilling but a taste for Tex-Mex
The Norwegian taco is a state of mind – it’s like asking a Swedish person what fika is – Helle Øder Valebrokk
A canny Norwegian shopkeeper in Stavanger began importing international food to serve this new community, and over the following decades supermarkets started stocking Old El Paso and Santa Maria Tex-Mex supermarket kits. What began as an expatriate craving slowly became a national ritual
Alamy
Today supermarket aisles across Norway are full of pre-packaged Tex-Mex food, stocked with brightly coloured boxes of taco shells, seasoning mixes and mild salsa. Tacos are now so embedded in Norwegian food culture that the country’s statistics bureau has even created a “Taco Index” to track the price of typical taco ingredients. The obsession even extends to Norway’s most famous footballer: in a “day in the life” video, Erling Haaland says tacos are “one of my favourite things”
Norwegians have form when it comes to adapting other countries’ food staples. A pølse med lompe consists of a frankfurter wrapped in soft potato flatbread, topped with shrimp salad, potato salad or crispy fried onions. Its condiments, in a nod to its American roots, include French’s yellow mustard and ketchup
“The Norwegian taco is a state of mind – it’s like asking a Swedish person what fika is,” says food writer Helle Øder Valebrokk, journalist and author of Taco!, an award-nominated Norwegian recipe book featuring a taco recipe for every Friday of the year. “I call it the Norwegian Happy Meal: on Taco Friday, you make your own tacos with the meat, vegetables and salsa, so everyone gets what they want.”
The result is a food tradition that is neither Mexican nor entirely Texan, but something Norway has made unmistakeably its own
The Norwegianisation of the taco
What made tacofredag take hold while other imported foods remained occasional novelties was how neatly they solved a Norwegian problem – how to make Friday dinner feel communal and low-key after a busy week. Supermarket kits made tacos simple, bowls of toppings made them customisable and the loose Tex-Mex definition of “taco” made them easy to adapt to local tastes
“In everyday life in Norway, a family dinner is not an event,” says Valebrokk. “People are busy, children go to sports clubs and many families will not sit down together to eat. On a Friday, that changes: it is a holy day for Norwegians when they finally relax together.”
Getty Images
The Norwegian taco is a far cry from traditional Mexican tacos. It is typically hard shelled, filled with minced beef, and topped with cheese, sour cream and lettuce. It’s less about culinary authenticity than simplicity and participation.
But there is room for creativity. Over time, Norwegians have adapted the taco to local tastes and ingredients. In the hunter-led northern reaches, reindeer and moose can appear in place of beef, while smoked salmon, shrimp and other fish versions crop up along the coast
At the Bocuse d’Or in Trondheim in 2024, chef Siriyaporn Mymint Rithisirikrerg created a tortilla filled with stockfish, the historic produce of the Lofoten Archipelago where she works, in tribute to the Friday taco
Valebrokk’s own book includes recipes with reindeer, Norwegian cod and vegetarian fillings, with pickled redcurrants as a topping. She is now working on a Norwegian version of tequila, made from citrus-flavoured aquavit, to accompany them
Taco!/ Lars Petter Pettersen
The authenticity debate
Not everyone sees the Nordic version as a taco in the traditional sense. Mexican chef Montserrat Garza, who has lived in Norway for nine years and runs Oslo restaurant La Mayor, was surprised when she first encountered Taco Friday.
“The first time I ate a Norwegian taco was at my ex-boyfriend’s house,” she said. “It was really nice to enjoy sharing food in a family style in Norway – it’s not so common to do that here – and I find it a really beautiful tradition. But I would never do it myself.”
Her objections are less about the ritual than the toppings like lettuce – something that, as a Mexican, she would never add – and the Norwegian habit of calling almost anything “taco” if it contains taco seasoning.
“I’ve seen a taco pizza on sale,” she said. “It does not make any sense!”
Getty Images
Valebrokk, however, sees the Norwegian taco not as failed authenticity but as adaptation – a dish absorbed, altered and made local. She points to the lomper, Norway’s soft potato flatbread, as evidence that the country had its own taco-like traditions long before Tex-Mex arrived
More like this:
• The controversial sweet that fuels Norwegians
• The sweet Dutch sandwich that makes no sense
• The contentious origins of England’s famous pudding
“You could say we have been eating tacos for longer than the Mexicans if you consider the lomper,” she said. “At Christmas – in a kind of Christmas taco if you like – we serve them rolled up with fermented fish, sour cream and onion inside them.”
Today, some Norwegians are making their own tortillas and seeking out more authentic versions. But after half a century of adaptation, the Norwegian taco remains unmistakably Norwegian: not quite Mexican, not quite Texan, and now as much as Friday-night ritual as a meal
—
If you liked this story,– a handpicked selection of features, videos and can’t-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week.
For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us onFacebookandInstagram.
World‘s Table
Food & Drink
Features
