Recently, I dug into my bag of flavor memories, well entrenched during the five years of my life in Helsinki.  Anticipating a week in the Finnish capital, my mental list of where to stop for lunch and which bakeries and cafés would merit a re-visit was growing as we circled to land on a snowy night.  The strength of certain spices ruled my recall, with cinnamon and cardamom controlling the olfactory zone – dill would wait until some sliced salmon appeared on the table.  But it was the dense, sweet sharpness of cardamom that hovered in the air outside cafés, even before I opened the door.  The finely ground black, spicy specks of cardamom appeared in every pulla that I pulled apart.

When we stopped for coffee in the Saturday market at Porvoo, huddled against a canvas windbreak with our faces turned to the sun, I marveled at the perfect, sugar-studded pulla before biting into its buttery center. Pulla provided consolation for the not-so-sunny, rather slushy days that followed.  And in the quest for the best of these traditional Finnish buns, I was led to a tiny café, Hopia, at 9  Pohjoinen Hesperiankatu.  The baker must have taken a fresh tray from his oven the moment we stepped inside, for the aromas triggered that strong coffee ja pulla memory connection.  Wooden tables with shiny plank benches were crowded with Hopia regulars, lingering over their afternoon coffee and nibbling the dense cardamom buns. I chose little round pullas, larger ones with a “butter eye”, a few twists of cinnamon-rich Korvapuusti ears, and gingerly carried the bakery bag along the broad boulevard.  Big grin, simple pleasures.  The small sack of Hopia treasures was almost empty by the time we left Helsinki, but this morning, I dipped the last pulla into my morning coffee back at home:  Helsinki revisited in a single bite.