What is Scandinavian food?

 

 

A few weeks have passed since I fired off a tweet asking the world – allright, my nice followers on twitter – what they associate with Scandinavian food. I expected a few kindly souls to reply “herrings and meatballs” but much to my surprise dozens of comprehensive and illuminating answers popped up in my replies column.

Being able to conduct an impromptu poll on twitter is one of the many reasons I love this social medium, so I thought I’d share with you a couple of themes I gleaned from the poll. Many thanks to all who replied, these answers have proven to be invaluable research for my book on Scandinavian food.

* Predictably, herrings, meatballs, and cured fish topped the list of replies. As the topic of a rant I was doing the next day was titled “It’s not all herrings and meatballs!” (er, a rant, as you might have guessed, on Scandinavian food, notes on which I’ll be posting here next week) this didn’t come as a surprise. These archetypal dishes always come up whenever I ask someone what they associate with Scandinavian food, thanks in part to the IKEAfication of the world. Hopefully my book will go some way to dispelling the notion that herrings and meatballs are our finest culinary exports

* As you’ll see there are other patterns that stand out: berries such as lingonberries and cloudberries, rye bread, reindeer, crispbread, dill, beetroot all make an appearance.

* But the more esoteric replies really intrigued me:  surströmming (fermented herring), chickweed, fishermans friends, hot dogs (oh yes), brown cheese, birch trees (do we eat those?) and my personal favourite….birch thwacking. Curiously my beloved cinnamon buns didn’t score that highly, nor did strong coffee. As anyone who has been to Scandinavia will tell you, coffee and cake (or indeed buns) is a time-honoured tradition.

You’ll have to scroll all the way down to the bottom and work your way up for the chronological sequence of answers as I’m too technologically challanged to figure out how to copy and paste the replies in reverse format.

And if you didn’t take part in the poll on twitter, do feel free to leave a reply in the comments below. I’d love to know what you think of when the word Scandinavian Food is mentioned, if you’ve been to Scandinavia, etc.

What is Scandinavian food?

pearcafe @scandilicious Ooo..I missed this earlier…mine would be Swedish coffee and Kanelbullar, gravadlax, wild strawberries & Weegie brown cheese

AbsolutePA RT @scandilicious: @instinctivecopy yes! salt liquorice, good one/ Oh yea really, really salty. Kalles drot kaviar and Annas Peppakarkor?

KaveyF @scandilicious not much else. I remember I couldn’t get ENOUGH of this fruits of forest flavour, these mixed berries, sooo exotic, so tasty!

KaveyF @scandilicious It’s funny what one remembers though, that yoghurt for example. At home then, flavours were plain, strawberry, vanilla and

KaveyF @scandilicious my dad. I didn’t learn until later it’s illegal to transport on planes as the cans can explode. Uugh!

KaveyF @scandilicious Or a nutter, I can’t decide which. When a friend of mine visited from Sweden few years ago, he sneaked some onto a plane for

KaveyF @aforkful I think I have some punschrulle in my freezer @scandilicious you know, those brown green cakes from sweden

aforkful @scandilicious @KaveyF http://typicalswe.blogspot.com/2007/01/swedish-vacuum-cleaners-everywhere.html * this is where you learn more about edible vaccuum cleaners *

aforkful @KaveyF @scandilicious and I think we’d both vote for vacuum cleaners, too – right, Kavey?

KaveyF @scandilicious And it’s got to be served in some of the fabulous fabulous Scandi design crockery as well. Nod.

KaveyF @scandilicious and meatballs, of course, oh and crispbreads and open sandwiches and lots of fish, lots of oddly preserved and pickled stuff

KaveyF @scandilicious Am I too late? My associations = surstromming (my dad loves it), chocolate milkshake, fruits of the forest berry mix yoghurt

justcookit @saffronberry @scandilicious it’s true. Ikea is your best bet unless you have compliant family who can ship them over

TheSSSCBristol @scandilicious roll mop herrings, sour cream, reindeer meat, vodka, honey mustard, ryvita, cooking things in larch boxes… a lot of fish

brockhallfarm @aforkful @scandilicious off the top of my head:herring, brown cheese, blueberries,all interspersed with trips to the sauna/birch thwacking!

bookatable @scandilicious Dill and herring!

FoodSnob @scandilicious aebleskiver, ollebrod, manitoba wheat, buttermilk, rodgrod

HubUK RT @goodshoeday: @scandilicious to me skinny dipping is something stupid upper class twits do in UK when pissed >>> Snobby comment? )

FoodSnob @scandilicious sea buckthorn, rye, horseradish, lammefjord asparagus, smoked eel, herring, lumpfish roe, radishes in lil’ pots, bleek roe

AbsolutePA @scandilicious picking chanterelle and blueberries in the woods, cinnamon buns and strong black coffee, nippon soppa…so many things!

saffronberry @justcookit @scandilicious tells me you have a hot dog predilection? Know where I can get real Scandi type thin hot dogs here?

CookYourDream @scandilicious dill, fish, meatballs, blueberries

saffronberry @scandilicious oh of course I had venison there too with a lingonberry sauce, remembering meals from long ago now. ’97-98.

instinctivecopy @scandilicious Löksill, dillsill, all sorts of pickle herring, salt liquorice (mmm), strong coffee and cinnamon buns

goodshoeday @Liz_Upton @scandilicious ah so a scani connection after all….my view is tainted by uni and law firms i worked at ;0

robertgiorgione @scandilicious yes and the crayfish and aquavit!

goodshoeday @scandilicious @Liz_Upton as a northern (ex) lower middle class person its not what you do ;0 and i’ve nevre seen the appeal tbh

beccarothwell @scandilicious and lingonberries! (IKEA’s influence again)

SpiceSpoon @scandilicious lingonberries, boysenberries, spiced cakes. x

Liz_Upton @scandilicious @goodshoeday I only started doing it because of a (drunk) winter sauna/Baltic experience a few years ago.

MeetaWFLH @scandilicious fish – Stekt fisk and Fiskesuppe and of course the Kjøttkaker. the gorgeous berries like lingonberries too!

robertgiorgione @scandilicious herring, gravadlax, reindeer and wild berries and fruits

goodshoeday @Liz_Upton ooops i know loads of people do it but i never see it as particularly scandi which is what @scandilicious was saying and…

missjordi_m @scandilicious smorgasboard, rye bread, cheese, ice cream, smoked salmon, cloudberries, herring, dill and hot dogs from a van

Liz_Upton @scandilicious Oh – and lampreys, rye bread, crisp breads and lamb. I’ll shut up now.

saffronberry @scandilicious oh wait, in Norway I ate thin hot dogs everywhere. I loved them.

cookingthebooks @scandilicious How did I forget crayfish, been to a couple of crayfish parties of Swedish friends.

saffronberry @scandilicious smoked fish. strong grain alcohol.

CulinaryTravels @scandilicious crispbreads, fish, gravadlax, beetroot

thewinesleuth @scandilicious thought that was a more Finnish thing to do!

beccarothwell Crispbreads, cured fish & dill RT @scandilicious What do you associate w/ Scandi food? Bit of research for rant @rudehealth @realfoodfest

Liz_Upton @scandilicious Also cider & perry, Fisherman’s Friends (in Finland, at any rate), vendace, fish roe of all kinds, beets. Have wanderlust.

aforkful @scandilicious crispbreads, open sandwiches, fish (esp gravadlax), kaviar spread, beetroot, blueberries, and banana cake

MathildeCuisine Salmon, gravalax, meatballs<What do you associate with Scandinavian food? …research for rant @rudehealth @realfoodfest /via @scandilicious

goodshoeday @scandilicious to me skinny dipping is something stupid upper class twits do in UK when pissed – am sure others do it too but thats my pic

cookingthebooks @scandilicious All from Ikea and Finland, and I think Finland is pushing the limits of Scandinavia – no?

robertgiorgione @scandilicious did you see Jamie Oliver in Stockholm last week? really interesting and did some foraging/cooking with Anna Mosseson

goodshoeday RT @R_McCormack: @scandilicious jumping out of Volvos and skinny dipping.< or saabs

josordoni fish, reindeer, crayfish <What do you associate with Scandinavian food? .. research for rant @rudehealth @realfoodfest /via @scandilicious

porridgelady You cheeky Scandinavians @scandilicious dare I say, isn’t it rather cold for skinny dipping?

R_McCormack @scandilicious Well you did ask

Chef_DDoherty @scandilicious amazing fish…pickled, smoked etc and Meatballs with lingdenberries is always a winner!

Liz_Upton @scandilicious Herring, dill, new potatoes, berries (esp cranberries & cloudberries), game, root veg, that squeaky dessert cheese, VODKA!

bacchae Gravadlax! Yum! RT @scandilicious: What do you associate w/ Scandinavian food? research 4 Scandi food rant @rudehealth stand @realfoodfest

R_McCormack @scandilicious jumping out of Volvos and skinny dipping.

cookingthebooks @scandilicious Cloudberries, elk, rye bread, reindeer, Gravadlax, dill

rudehealth @scandilicious @realfoodfest Herrings, meatballs, reindeer, berries & soured cream. (I obviously need to be ranted at)

thewinesleuth @scandilicious pickled herring and aquavit, rye bread, smoked salmon, dill and the woods, birch trees are the white ones?

sulineats @scandilicious open faced sandwiches, fish, meatballs!

goodshoeday @scandilicious sild, many ways, fish generally, rye bread and of cousre WHALE ;0

thegrubworm @scandilicious smoked/cured fish, rye bread, cloudberries, shellfish – all the stereotypes i’m afraid. Hope to fix that soon though.

lahlootea Ikea’s meatballs! – What do you associate with Scandinavian food? A bit of research for rant @rudehealth @realfoodfest /via @scandilicious

Glitterblog @scandilicious first thing I think of is gravadlax. Then I think of Tessa Kiros and ‘Falling Cloudberries’.