I get a kick out of a few uniquely Finnish inventions. Some are awesome ideas that would make sense around the world. The others are... well... unique. I'll let you decide.
And a lot of them seem to have to do with cleaning! Joel thinks Finns are particularly fussy about cleaning. When I stress or nag about cleaning, he is always telling me to "stop being so Finnish!". I don't get it... Does that mean non-Finns are dirty slobs? Is cleanliness the secret to Finnish happiness?!
Mattopiiska & Mattoteline
I've never seen this done in the US but for some reason Finns seem to believe that to get your carpets really clean, you have to beat them. There is even an old school tool, typically made out of wicker, for this called the "rug whip" i.e. "mattopiiska".
Per Wikipedia this tool has also been known as a clothes-beater, dust beater, carpet duster, wicker slapper, rug duster, or pillow fluffer, and a rug cleaner. It was apparently commonly used (in the US also?) until vacuum cleaners became affordable. Yes, Finns do have vacuum cleaners as well but apparently old habits are hard to shake... (sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun). For a Finn, to get the carpets really clean there is no recourse but to get violent! Most apartment or townhouse complexes also have a special place to beat your carpets called the mattoteline or tamppauseline. I guess you could call it a "rug rack" in English. Tamppaus is the verb used for beating your rugs: you haul the heavy rugs out, hang them on the "rug rack", beat the rugs as hard as you can with the "mattopiiska" with the goal of hitting all the dirt out. Our complex has one of these "rug racks" as well but I haven't used it yet. Maybe I should stop blogging and go get some "hyötyliikunta", "practical exercise" as Finns like to call it, by beating some rugs?
Mattolaituri
More on the obsession of clean rugs... Actually this focus is interesting given in Finland everyone takes their shoes off indoors. This should make rugs cleaner to begin with but apparently the no shoes policy, vacuuming and beating your rugs still doesn't cut the mustard. One must also regularly wash the darn things. Are Finnish women (not sure if equality has reached this niche activity) gluttons for punishment?
As a kid I remember going to a special indoor, self-serve rug laundromat with my mom that also offered carpet cleaning option. She'd lay the rugs on the floor, hose them down and get on her hands & knees to scrub them. But a more common approach is to wash your rugs on a "mattolaituri" which is a special dock in the ocean or a lake. Some of them have barrels you can stand in so that you can easily reach the rugs to scrub and rinse them in the ocean.
Astiankuivauskaappi
I love this invention! Back in San Jose Joel always complains that I'm guilty of dish "jenga". I readily wash dishes by hand when needed but for some reason I'm lazy about putting them away. So we end up with a crazy pile of handwashed dishes in the rack inside the 2nd sink.
What we have in Finland in our house, and likely in most apartments and houses (although I wonder about the super modern, simplistic ones?) is a dish drying cabinet. It is a cabinet above the sink where the dish racks form the shelves. You wash the dishes and set the wet ones in the "astiankuivauskaappi" to airdry. The water drips down and ends up in the sink or the counter. (Some have a tray at the bottom to collect water.) The water in Finland isn't "hard" so we don't get the crazy chemical stains here that you'd see in San Jose: air drying is not a problem. And you can hide laziness in putting dishes away by simply closing the cabinet doors!
Kuivauskaappi
I liked this Finnish invention well enough to get it for our San Jose home also. Well, actually Joel got one for me as a Christmas gift one year. He sure knows how to woo a woman! Kuivauskaappi is a relative to the astiankuivauskaappi except it is for clothes. It is a large cabinet in which you can hang wet clothes from playing outside in the snow or rain. You could also use it to air dry delicate cloths that you can lay flat. You can run it with a fan with or without hot air. I think it probably has more use in a climate like Finland's than San Jose's, especially because it would be easy enough to dry clothes outside in San Jose... but for some reason, having grown up with them and being lazy about hanging clothes to dry outside, I felt I had to have a kuivauskaappi in the house.
Lettupannu
People talk about French crepes but I like to think of crepes as Finnish. They are made with slightly thicker batter than the French ones but they are definitely thinner than American pancakes. You can make them on a normal frying pan if you like them large. But the easiest way to make lettu i.e. Finnish crepes is to make them small using a dedicated frying pan called "lettupannu". Lettupannu makes 7 little lettu at a time - you just put a dollop of butter and batter in each hole and topf with a spoonfull of batter. Cook for a few minutes per side and then, yum, enjoy your lettu with some cloudberry or strawberry jam!
Pullonpalautuskone
This gadget is one of Joels' favorite things about Finland: a bottle-return machine! You find them in the lobby of nearly every grocery store.
You can bring your beer cans, plastic soda bottles and even liquor or wine bottles back to the store for a refund. You simply push the bottles/cans into the mouth of the beast and the conveyor belt turns on to suck them in. Joel says it is like Vegas: the machine makes cute little noises and you see your money add up. The refunds range between 10-40 cents each bottle/can.
Once you're done, you press a button and get a receipt with your total refund. You then go into the store with your receipt and use the refund towards your groceries. So convenient and a great way to encourage people to recycle!
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