In many ways Sweden is not very different from any other western country. They eat meat and potatoes, they watch tv, they drink alcohol and they gather regularly for social events that involve being childish and a little bit retarded.
But it's not the similarities that catch my eye, but the differences. Some bigger than others, I have been picking up on little things along the way.
Swedes love their meat. They eat beef, chicken, pork and fish just like the rest of us. They eat big giant polish sausage things, massive chunks of pig marinated for an enternity, burgers, minced cow, marianted poultry and even all kinds of weird meat-flavoured cream cheese (A sampling of Betty´s salami cream cheese was scary but surprisingly tasty). A curiously common occurance when it comes to red meat is a side of jam. Lingonsylt is a regular accompaniment to meatballs, deer steaks, blood pudding (a much more refined version of English black pudding) and pretty much any other red meat they serve up. The idea seemed very strange to me and I wasn't too keen on it at first but it's starting to grow on me. A good plate of pannbiff with mashed potatoes, onions and brown sauce is nicely complimented by a big dollop of lingonberry jam. Mums! (yum)
But it's not the similarities that catch my eye, but the differences. Some bigger than others, I have been picking up on little things along the way.
Swedes love their meat. They eat beef, chicken, pork and fish just like the rest of us. They eat big giant polish sausage things, massive chunks of pig marinated for an enternity, burgers, minced cow, marianted poultry and even all kinds of weird meat-flavoured cream cheese (A sampling of Betty´s salami cream cheese was scary but surprisingly tasty). A curiously common occurance when it comes to red meat is a side of jam. Lingonsylt is a regular accompaniment to meatballs, deer steaks, blood pudding (a much more refined version of English black pudding) and pretty much any other red meat they serve up. The idea seemed very strange to me and I wasn't too keen on it at first but it's starting to grow on me. A good plate of pannbiff with mashed potatoes, onions and brown sauce is nicely complimented by a big dollop of lingonberry jam. Mums! (yum)I haven't had too much experience with real home-made meatballs but the cheap frozen type you get from the supermarket have become a staple in my poor season worker diet. Damn tasty. You can even get a plate (with Lingonsylt naturally) from Ikea back home. Highly recommend it.
Swedes love to fika. Basically it's sitting around eating various cake-type baked goods, drinking coffee or tea and talking shit. They do it all the time and get all excited about it. I had a solid 30minute conversation at work the other day about the joys of fika. I suppose the nearest Brittish-culture equivalent would be afternoon tea with scones but this is much more common and can happen any time of day. People go nuts for it and especially the girls get all excited at the idea. I played along at first thinking it was a bit queer, but the structured element of conversation has its merits. Go Sweden.
Hardly a Swedish game but one that occurrs regularly in our house is Beerpong. Dangerously often might be the way to put it. At least from my point of view it´s ridiculously addictive. Basically you set up cups of beer on either end of a table like bowling pins. You throw a ping pong ball from one end and try to get it in to the cups. When you succeed the other team drinks the cup. It´s a bit more complicated than that but you get the idea. Would you like to know more? We play a ´cleaner´version where we use water in the cups and drink correspondingly from a can. With 25 or so 20 somthings in one house - our house gets trashed badly enough as it is: the last thing we need is beer getting splashed all over the tables and floors... Writing it down here makes it seem a bit juvenile but what was that I mentioned about being childish and retarded? I´m just getting Swedish with it in my own way.
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