Kama (food)


Kama or talkkuna or tolokno is a traditional Estonian and Finnish and Russian finely milled flour mixture. The kama or talkkuna powder is a mixture of roasted barley, rye, oat and pea flour. The oat flour may be completely replaced by wheat flour, or kibbled black beans may be added to the mixture.
Historically kama was a non-perishable, easy-to-carry food that could be quickly fashioned into a stomach-filling snack by rolling it into butter or lard; it didn't require baking, as it was already roasted.
Nowadays it is used for making some desserts. It is mostly enjoyed for breakfast mixed with milk, buttermilk or kefir as mush. It is frequently sweetened with sugar and especially with blueberry, more rarely with other fruits or honey or served unsweetened. It is also used for milk or sour desserts, together with the forest berries typical in Estonia and Finland.
Kama can be bought as a souvenir in Estonia. It is one of the most distinctive national foods of Estonia.
A similar product is skrädmjöl, a flour, consisting exclusively of roasted oats, which is traditionally made in the Swedish province of Värmland. It was brought there by Forest Finns.
In colloquial Finnish and Estonian, "kama" also means "things, stuff", but can also refer to narcotics.