Bridgestone

Disclaimer - didn't feel like reading the article... "Hjemmebrent" is certainly the same as what folks in Sweden call "hembränt". The word literally translates to "home-burnt" and refers to distilling your own alcohol, i.e., moonshine. This, perhaps, is the only drink on the list that I'd actually consider "dangerous" in any sense beyond the dangers of getting (too) quickly drunk on high-proof liquor. I'm far from a pro but my memory is that methanol can boil off initially in the distilling process before the ethanol starts vaporizing. Upon condensation, if this isn't kept seperate and discarded then there's a risk of consuming methanol which leads to a mess of acute health problems (blindness, death, etc). (As an aside - I think I remember hearing from a toxicologist that anyone who suspects that they have consumed methanol should immediately consume/be administered some ethanol as the body will then need to metabolize the ethanol, too. By keeping the body occupied with ethanol one may be able to excrete the methanol without it ever being metabolized by the liver and turned into toxic formaldehyd. Sure, there are easier ways to get a drink but when was the last time you got to say "Cheers!" in the emergency room?) Oh, and one more danger with high-proof liquor - it's extremely flammable (and not always in the humorous, Revenge-of-the-Nerds sense...). Sorry if I'm just repeating stuff from the article!

As usual, a Swedish Julbord: - Swedish ham (cured but not smoked). Ecological and picked up from a local farm. It will either be baked or boiled and coated with a mixture of egg yolks and mustard before being coated with breadcrumbs and quickly seared under the broiler. - Small sausages and meatballs. The sausages are like small, high-quality, smoked hotdogs and the meatballs are homemade from a meat mixture of ground chuck and prosciutto - Pickled herring (3 types: traditional "onion", creamy curry and creamy garlic) - homemade Najadlax (cold-smoked gravadlax) and hot-smoked salmon - Hard-boiled egg halves with bleakfish cavier - Pickled beets - Red cabbage cooked with onions, allspice, cloves, orange juice and stock - Jansson's temptation. Potato gratin made with Swedish "anchovies" (they have, like most traditional Swedish foods, a salty-sweet brine), potatoes cut into matchsticks, milk/cream and butter. - Swedish Christmas bread. - Cheddar, Vacherin mont d'or (o.k., not Swedish but available and too good to miss!) Have a couple bottles of 2002 Isabel Pinot Noir which works well with the heavy but varied tastes on the buffet. Swedish Christmas beer as well as mumma (a mixture of porter, Christmas beer, a soda similar sweetened club soda, port and/or sherry and spices including cardamon, dried seville organe peel and cloves) and snaps, as well. I usually skip dessert but the kids will probably want "Ris ala Malta" - rice porridge mixed with sweetened whipped cream and served with fruit salad. We've got plenty of homemade saffron buns and chocolate toffee on hand to have with coffee afterwards, too. Happy Holidays!

Abra - Najadlax is cured first (salt, sugar, dill and perhaps some juniper berries and/or gin) and then cold-smoked. I'll be using some Morello cherry wood that I have in the shed but the more authentic choice is probably either alder or juniper. Busboy - I see you write that you flavor your gravadlax with cumin. That's an interesting twist that I haven't seen in Sweden. I ask, though as many Swedes often mistakenly call caraway "cumin" and caraway seems like more of a natural/common flavoring. Another very nice spice to try (if venturing away from the traditional sugar/salt/dill) is coriander.

Checking in from Sweden, here. And right in the yearly high of home-gravlaxing, too! 1) Current recommendations in Sweden are to actually freeze all salmon before curing it. As someone else mentioned, it is to kill off any parasites living in the flesh. If the freezing and thawing affects the quality or texture of the fish, it won't hold a candle to the changes the sugar and salt cure will be doing and I personally don't notice a difference in the final product. The authorities also discourage all pregnant or nursing woman from eating "raw" (cured or cold-smoked) salmon due to the risk of a listeria infection. Some people get confused over here and mistakenly believe that freezing takes care of listeria but that's not the case... 2) Sure you can cure other fish and end up with a "gravad" product! Recommendations over here are to use neutral-tasting fish although I see people posting successful results with tuna. I've seen recipes for cured cod, cured arctic char, cured whitefish ("sik") and, of course, herring. The specific examples of "don't cure" that I've seen are pike and mackerel. And fish certainly aren't the limit. Cured tenderloins (beef, reindeer, elk, moose, etc.) are all available. What I'll be preparing this year could be interesting for any home-smokers reading this: Najadlax. It's both cured/gravad and cold-smoked.

Well, we've already got some Northerners reporting on what's happening in gardens in these latitudes so I won't add too much in that department. Ran by Stockholm's fanciest market yesterday, glanced at the vegetable stands and saw asparagus (only white from Germany and green from Peru. Swedish-grown asparagus won't be available for perhaps a month still...). New potatoes (hothouse) were available and judging by the status of this market, may well be some of the few harvested in Sweden. With all of the late snow this year, I wonder if it will be tough to find new potatoes for midsommar? Read in the newspaper on Wednesday that the first harvest of strawberries (hothouse, too) occurred in Southern Sweden earlier this week - 16 liters that were immediately shipped to the Royal Family and a few Stockholm restaurants. The only local, springtime products I saw were spring chickens (still small, baby chickens over and up here and not a product of cross-breeding) and small bags of stinging nettles. Maybe a couple of spring chickens with nettle sauce this weekend to welcome back the spring flowers and the blackbird's evening song?

Well, it's "fettisdag" in Sweden today and this means it is finally the traditional day to eat "semlor". I say traditional as they actually been in the bakeries since around Christmas... A "semla" ("semlor" is plural) is a cardamon bun that has been cut open in a manner that leaves a triangular "hat" (think: the Subway method of cutting the bread but on a round bun). The majority of the bun's insides are scraped out and mixed with almond paste and cream to make a loose-but-not-runny paste. This paste is then piped into the hollowed bun and about 1/2 cup of loosely whipped cream is piped on top of that. The "hat" is placed on top of the cream and the whole creation gets a dusting of powdered sugar. Most Swedes eat them as they are but the true treat, in my opinion, is called by most people a "hetvägg" (looks like it would translate as "hot wall" but apparently really stems from old Swedish and "hot wheat" as in "hot wheat buns"...) and entails placing the semla in a bowl of hot milk. At home we usually dust the top with a little cinammon and induldge in this gooey concoction after a dinner of homemade soup. In fact, I've most likely just described tonight's dinner!

I'm wondering a little about the whole "never touch the fish on airlines" cliché... Has anyone here ever actually gotten sick from the fish option? As someone else mentioned, we've all seen "Airplane!" but what are our experiences? I know that until recently I have also felt a warning lamp go on when offered the fish choice. I fly SAS intercontinental (Stockholm - Chicago) pretty regularly and noticed that the meat course has, due to recent cutbacks, nearly always been meatballs with mashed potatoes. I'm not too wild about the factory-produced meatballs Sweden is rapidly becoming associated with (Thanks IKEA!) so I've been choosing the fish course recently. Guess what? It's great! Fresh, well-cooked fish with a great sauce and some green beans (or similar) and rice. It's usually a white fish (halibut?) or maybe sometimes salmon. Trust me - a far cry better then the meatballs. Not only better quality but significant more quantity, too. And certainly no Linda Blair-like incidents for me so far... So, have we been fooled or have the airlines (at least SAS) listened to our complaints, seen the non-eaten fish and improved the fish choice without informing us? Anyone else dare to order the fish? (I will, in general, put in another vote for SAS having great food, service and flights to and within Scandinavia.)

Bake with it! Swedes make a sweetish roll at Christmas time that you could easily recreate with a challa-like dough (use milk instead of water and let a good pinch of saffron steep in the milk for, say, 24 hours beforehand). They make "S"-shaped buns with a raisin studden in each curl but don't let that limit your imagination. Or try making cinnamon buns with a pinch of saffron included in that dough. I do recommend the long steeping of the saffron as it really gets a deep flavor out of it. Of course, fish stews are awfully tasty with a pinch of saffran in the broth, too.

What are you alluding to, Freaky2Times? I assume you are warning about the fact that Butterfish in large quantities has been linked to stomach problems. At least that's what I've got in my head. Particularily nasty problems, too. Of the "sudden and violent" nature... On the other hand, I've eaten fish sold under the name "butterfish" where I live and never experienced any problems. It was very tasty - full flavored and meaty. It's not sold in any large amounts over here, though which leads me to believe that it doesn't sell too well. I do know that I'm a little careful about buying it due to the associations it has in my head... So, what's the story? Does it cause problems in some people/certain circumstances or is it yet another case of mixed-up names and identities? I've searched eGullet (albeit rather superficially) but nothing jumped out at me. Anyone got a link or an answer?

Definately not a semla (good guess, though). I think what you are describing is something I guess would be called "vaniljbullar" (simply "vanilla buns"). You basically make a batch of all-purpose sweet bun dough, let 'em rise, use your thumb to make a dent in the top and pipe in some vanilla cream. Brush the top with an egg and heavy cream mixture (maybe 50/50?) and bake. When they are done, brush with eggwhite and sprinkle on some of the Swedish "pearl sugar" or, in a pinch, maybe dust with powdered or dip in regular sugar. I'm reluctant to do an entire translation of the recipe I found on the net until an adminstrator tells me that it's o.k. Without that, make a brioche dough (it's richer then the sweet bun dough used over here but I'd imagine would still be good) and add a solid pinch of cardamon. If I remember correctly, vanilla cream is simply a heavily thickened vanilla custard. You can buy decent mixes over here but it's only better made from scratch. If you find a recipe for cinammon buns or such then I'd imagine that could also be used as the base dough. You could also try filling with 50/50 vanilla cream and applesauce or a nice jam, perhaps! Good luck and I'm glad you enjoyed the bakeries over here!

I've been living in Sweden for nearly 10 years now but I have to admit that I decided not to answer this question when I first read it a few weeks back. I don't think that there are any easy answers... I'm not sure if I completely buy the viking answer. Food/spice discoveries have happened through all ages as different civilizations have come in contact with one another. I don't see any reason why the vikings bringing spices back to Scandinavia would have any more lasting impact then say, the Romans bringing their spices to England. My hypothesis has to do with the fact that Sweden and much of Scandinavia were relatively poor nations for a not all too long ago. I think that one can see quite a few reminents of these poorer times in Sweden's culinary traditions. Spices and goods from far-away places were luxuries that could only be tasted in times of celebration. Food and celebration go hand-in-hand in probably all cultures and as Sweden's poorer days are not too many generations back, the old traditions perhaps live a little stronger here. Scandinavia has some of the highest per capita coffee consumption in the world. I believe this stems from a time when coffee was truly an exotic luxury imported from far-away places over dangerous oceans. To this day, one cannot be invited home to a Swedish family without being offered a cup of coffee. Saffron also has a leading role in Swedish celebration foods (saffron-steeped snaps, saffron-pickled herring and of course the Christmas saffron buns). And cardamom, too. Used in special dishes and with a heavy hand (just to make everyone understand that the item in question is indeed luxury). Perhaps that and the fact that Sweden is a relatively uniform and homogeneous nation (i.e., nearly a whole nation celebrating the same holidays and ordering/making the same dishes) and you've got a pretty active market for some certain spices and goods. At least that's what I can come up with when I think about it!