I had been dreaming about Norwegian lamb and fresh mountain trout for weeks before our trip to Oppdal, so when our sat-nav decided the best route to our cabin involved a dirt track through what I can only describe as a very committed puddle, my stomach was already rumbling in protest. My partner, ever the optimist, insisted this was a shortcut. It was not a shortcut. It was a forty-five minute detour through someone's sheep field, during which I may have said some things about Norwegian road planning that I now regret. The sheep, I should note, looked deeply unimpressed.

By the time we reached our cabin, a traditional timber place with a proper wood-burning stove and a kitchen that actually looked like someone cooked in it, I was ready to eat my own walking boots. The owners had left a loaf of local bread on the counter, still warm, and a note about the nearest food shops. I tore into that bread like a man possessed. It was dense and nutty, the sort of bread that makes you realise how much time you've wasted on supermarket sliced white.

The next morning, determined to do this properly, we drove the few miles into Oppdal village to find the local food shop. I had grand plans. I was going to cook like a Norwegian. I was going to forage, perhaps. I was going to make something with cloudberries. The shop was excellent, full of local cheeses and cured meats and reindeer sausages that I examined with the seriousness of a man selecting a new car. I bought far too much, including something called gammelost that the shopkeeper described with a smile I now understand was barely concealed mischief. That cheese, I discovered later, has a reputation. It smells like it has opinions. Strong opinions.

Back at the cabin, I attempted my first proper Norwegian meal. The reindeer sausages went into a pan with some local potatoes and whatever herbs I could identify in the garden. I felt very smug. I felt very capable. I then managed to set off the smoke alarm, which echoed through the valley with an enthusiasm that surely alerted every hiker within five miles. My partner opened every window. The sausages were actually rather good, if you enjoy them with a slight char and the taste of mild panic.

The following day we found a small local market, more of a gathering really, where farmers sold their produce from the backs of vans. I bought honey that tasted of the mountainside, whatever that means, and some brown cheese that I had initially dismissed as a tourist thing but now genuinely crave with coffee. An elderly woman sold me pickled herring from a jar and explained, in excellent English, that I was eating it wrong. I was eating it wrong. There is a correct way. I listened, I nodded, I ate it her way, and she was absolutely right.

My cooking improved marginally over the week. I made a fish soup with locally caught trout that didn't set off any alarms. I burned the bottom of a pot of rommegrot, which is sour cream porridge and much nicer than it sounds when you don't carbonise it. I became genuinely competent at making knekkebrod, those crispbreads that Norwegians seem to produce effortlessly, though mine were more effortful and somewhat less crisp.

The wood-burning stove became my ally for slow-cooked stews in the evenings, while outside the mountain light stretched long across the valley. I would sit with my gammelost, which I had grown to respect if not love, and feel thoroughly pleased with myself. The mishaps had become the memories. The smoke alarm, the burnt porridge, the cheese that smelled like a challenge - they were the holiday now, more than any perfect meal could have been.

On our last morning, I made pancakes with local jam and actually got them right first time. I stood in that kitchen, looking out at the mountains, and felt briefly like a person who had their life together. Then I remembered the sheep field, and the smoke alarm, and the look on that shopkeeper's face. I smiled, ate my pancake, and started planning what I might cook when we came back.