Welcome to Sweden! You’ll need strong legs.
Imagine that you are about to go out into the woods to pick berries. Now imagine that the woods are about the size of Michigan. Welcome to Sweden! 95,553 square miles, which is 55% of the surface area of Sweden, is covered by forest. Where there are woods you can find “superberries”, and in Sweden anyone is allowed to pick them. It is fairly easy, if you know where to look. But you have to have the energy to hike to the right place in the woods, pick the low-growing berries while bent over, and then carry your heavy harvest home. And you can’t be too scared of wild animals either as bears are particularly fond of blueberries!
A delightful way to build up an appetite.
Of course you would work up a hearty appetite after being out picking berries. Try walking for miles through bogs and forests with 20-30 quarts of cloudberries in your backpack and you’ll see. Swedish food is satisfying and makes use of simple and pure flavors. Moose tastes like moose, lingonberries taste like lingonberries and together they are fantastic.
Be Swedish for a day.
If you want to eat genuine, traditional Swedish cuisine for an entire day, try this:
Breakfast.
Hard rye bread with butter, hard cheese or smoked ham with sliced cucumber. Boiled eggs with Swedish caviar. Yoghurt with crushed hard rye bread and lingonberry or blueberry jam. A glass of rosehip or blueberry soup or a cup of coffee.
Lunch.
Meatballs with gravy, boiled potatoes, pickles and lingonberry jam. Hard ryebread with butter. Beer, milk or lingonberry drink and coffee.
Dinner.
Moose steak, chanterelle sauce, Hasselback potatoes, blackcurrant jelly and lingonberry jam. Hard rye bread with butter and hard cheese. Beer, red wine or milk.
Desserts.
Crêpes with blueberry jam. Waffles with cream and cloudberry jam. Cloudberry parfait. A piece of hard cheese with lingonberry or cloudberry jam.