Check out the Exciting Photos from Finland’s First-Ever Wilderness Cooking Championships!

A large audience gathered at Finnish Nature Centre Haltia last Saturday to witness the first ever Wilderness Cooking Finnish Championships. Haltia is located close to Helsinki and next to Nuuksio Natural Park known for its beautiful lakes, forests, and hiking trails. Both the judges, organizers, and audience were impressed by the high quality of the dishes prepared during the competition. Nineteen teams competed in three different categories: Camping Stove, Freestyle, and Guest Series. The media was also present, and the cameras were flashing non-stop!

The Camping Stove category, with six teams, was the first to start the competition. The audience quickly began to gather to watch the teams cook. It was delightful to observe the interaction between the audience and the competitors – tips and ideas were flying, and the audience was amazed by the competitors’ skills and creativity.

In the Camping Stove category, the competitors had half an hour for preparation and one hour for cooking. The menus included both game meat and wild herbs of spring, and the appearance of the dishes made it immediately clear that the level of the first-ever Finnish Championship of Wilderness Cooking had been raised to an incredibly high standard.

The organizer of the event, Retkipaikka wants to promote both Finnish and worldwide wilderness food culture and to inspire people to compete and challenge themselves and their beliefs about eating outdoors with the Taste of Wilderness competition. Many members of the event audience expressed their happiness to us organizers and the competition’s stars, the competitors, for their inspiring, versatile, and sometimes surprising camping food and technique tips, so we can confidently say that the event was a success!

You can find pictures of the winners of the different categories and information about their menus at the end of the article.

The cloudless morning sky turned into a cloudy afternoon, but the number of people at the event kept growing. At least Finland’s May didn’t throw snow, sleet, or even rain on us! The atmosphere among the audience and competitors was joyful and good-humored, and curiosity and delicious smells filled the air. The picture below shows the ongoing freestyle category, in which four teams competed.

A total of nine teams of Finnish outdoor influencers arrived for the guest category. The sun began to shine again!

While the judges were considering their points, the guest competitors had time to explore what the other teams had made. The day had already turned into evening, but the uninterrupted chatter still echoed through Haltia’s event field as the participants waited for the announcement of the final winners of the day.

Many of the competitors stated that they would participate again, and some even claimed that they would start practicing for next year’s event already on the following day.

Winners of Taste of Wilderness 2023

The first-place award in the Wilderness Cooking Series went to a group of scouts. Pablo Tikkanen and Ria Poutanen worked together to create a menu that caught the attention of many in the audience: the duo made tartlets using a Trangia stove as an oven (a short video is available on the Retkipaikka Instagram highlights). Tikkanen and Poutanen’s menu consisted of cauliflower puree tartlets as the starter, followed by a main course of birch risotto and pike-perch, and for dessert, a rhubarb and oat crumble crowned with rowanberries, which was a favorite of the judges.

The Freestyle Series was won by a team called Eränuotion henkilökunta. Lemmikki Ruuskanen, Anna-Maria Malkamäki, and Tarja Pennala created a menu consisting of whitefish for the starter, roe deer venison fillet for the main course, and cloudberries for dessert. Each dish was prepared using a different method, which added a great deal of variety to the presentation: the dishes were made by grilling over a fire, marinating, pickling, boiling, and served fresh. The team reported that everything went perfectly, and Ruuskanen praised her amazing team.

The Invitation Series was won by Caj and Katja Koskinen, also known as Team Nälkäkiukku. Their starter was a nettle and ground-ivy omelette with marinated radishes. The main course was a forest deer sirloin, and the dish was called Bambi’s Revenge because it included garlic and chili. The meat was served with mashed potatoes and lovage, whose leaves from their own garden were picked in the morning for the competition. For dessert, they served carrot cake, which judge Ranta initially mistook for homemade. The carrot cake was accompanied by rosehip syrup and dried, ground rosehip.

You can find many videos from the competition day on Retkipaikka’s Instagram highlights!

Thank you for the sponsors of Taste of Wilderness: