Thursday November 16 7:50 AM ET
Come Donner, Come Blitzen -- Into the Frying Pan

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Food connoisseurs looking for a new Nordic dish will be
tasting reindeer tongue this winter, although fans of Santa Claus may find
the delicacy hard to swallow.

Finland's game chef of the year Jyri Hanninen Thursday recommended that
enthusiasts of the meat cook up his latest recipe for reindeer tongue toast.

``When the tongue is cooked right, the skin slides off like you were pulling
off a sock,'' he told Reuters.

``It's a very soft and fatty meat and needs to be seasoned well, but at its
best it tastes even better than steak.''

Reindeer, herded by the Sami people in northern Europe, is a popular dish in
Finland and Sweden.

But for many children, reindeer pull Santa's sled bearing Christmas gifts
fabricated by his elves somewhere in the Arctic Circle, and is not something
they'd like to see on a plate.