Sheepish Eats, the Norway Way 

Music pairing for this story: Nils Petter Molvaer, Khmer (ECM Records). Listen here. 

This spring, when I informed people that I was headed back for my annual pilgrimage to the Vossa Jazz Festival in Western Norway, those who have known my habits responded with, “Oh, is this the sheep’s head dinner festival?”

Well, yes, it is, but so much more. I come for the music, basking in the unique palette of sounds of Norwegian jazz (and jazz-adjacent), mixing jazz, Norwegian folk, impressionistic fjord-side airs, and more. But digging into a delectable sheep head delicacy is icing on the experiential cake at Vossa Jazz.

As part of the festival’s grand tradition here in Voss, the dense long-weekend program features the premiere of a central new commissioned work — the Tingingsverk — after which the musicians (this year, the ambitiously diverse Kjetil Møster and his large ensemble), insiders, dignitaries from Norway’s rich jazz scene, and stray journalists (ahem) convene in a nearby restaurant for the ancient Norwegian smalahove — a k a “sheep head” — dinner. 

Past Tingingsverk projects include trumpeter-conjurer Nils Petter Molvær’s famed Khmer (see music pairing above), premiered in 1996 and reprised at 2023’s 50th anniversary fest. Trumpeter Matthias Eick also created a sweet suite called simply Voss, in 2011, and happily proceeded over to the smalahove for an epicurean victory lap.

The smalahove is and has long been a ceremonial dinner fare in Norway, especially as a pre-Christmas tradition. The endeavor is also a holdover from the pre-oil-rich era of Norwegian life, when the country’s gripping poverty sent waves of immigrants to the American Midwest, and when wasting parts of an animal seemed unthinkable.

Fast-forward to modern times, and partaking of the smalahove, as I told a WDR journalist I met and befriended there, Karsten Mützelfeldt — and continue to tell other skeptics — is a matter of moral imperative. This is not just Anthony Bourdain–ish “extreme” eats business. 

For those of us who are carnivores, or omnivores, it can seem suspect to discard parts of the dined-upon animal we deem unsuitable for our cultivated palates. We need to respect the animals we sacrifice for our diets. In my case, I was already primed by eating at Lilly’s Taqueria in Santa Barbara, where they serve tacos stuffed with eyeballs (ojo), head (cabeza), tongue (lengua), lip (labio), and cheek (cachete).

At Vossa Jazz, the ceremony includes much regalia, a rhyme in sympathy with the meat we’re about to eat, and humorous speeches. (My longtime Norwegian ally from the festival, Brit Aksnes, sometimes filled me in on the jocular and scuttlebutt content otherwise lost on this non-Norwegian speaker.) 

Then comes the fateful moment: Plates are presented to the long tables with half a long-boiled sheep head staring up, one-eyed, at the visitor, replete with eyeball (surprisingly tasty), tongue, ear, and the particularly savory cheek. Rutabaga and boiled potato are familiar second-fiddle adornments on the side, along with aquavit, the indigenous liquid-courage-inducing, caraway-tinged liqueur, as a chaser and companion. 

This spring marked the venerable 52nd edition of the festival in Voss, and my 16th visit here, starting in 2008, the same year Trude Storheim assumed the director role. I soon became something of a Vossa Jazz mascot, and it’s a habit I hope to never get over. Voss is a lovely and peaceful lakeside town in Western Norway, at the base of a steep-rising mountain with a popular ski area high above the town. Jazz festival aside, the city is even more widely known for its world-famous Ekstremsportveko (Extreme Sports Week) festival each June.

It is one of the many western Norwegian cities bombed to veritable smithereens by the Nazis in 1940. A hint of divine intervention hovers over the fact that one of the only historic buildings unscathed by the bombing was the central Vangskirche, built in 1277, soon after paganism gave way to Christianity in Norway. The festival takes advantage of the vintage sacred space, presenting such intimate concerts as this year’s duo of accordionist Frode Haltli and saxophonist Trygve Seim (listen here). 

The first year I went to the festival, I eagerly took part in the smalahove celebration, to engage all my senses in this particular festival’s experience and ethos. I took a walk the next day, up the hill above the town where unabashedly colorful houses mixed with a semi-rural setting and met with a frank, unexpected gaze. A sheep was perched at a barn window and was staring straight at me, either accusatorially — as if to say, “Hey, you ate my kin” — or with a wary appreciation of my having at least respected the meaty entirety of said slaughtered kin. I could appreciate both possible interpretations.

One important piece to the smalahove phenomenon is the all-important search for the brekebein (bleating bone): the small, wishbone-like bone that enables the sheep’s “bah” sound and confers good luck on the finder. At the risk of pomposity, I can claim bragging right as owner of the largest brekebein collection in Santa Barbara. Maybe the entire west coast of this country. I occasionally admire my enlightened bone collection and begin dreaming of Voss, its jazz, lake, and its sheep culture.