The amazing world of candy cultures: Sweden

I believe that candy and desserts are one of the few areas were strong cultural differences still live on. Thai, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, and American food have conquered the world and anybody knows what sushi, burgers, and ketchup is now.  But I think candy has a long way to go to become more global, at least candy outside of the chocolate main stream.

So, for your food education, here is some typical Swedish candy that you can't really buy in the US or other countries of the world (the northern parts of EU excepted).

First, Swedes love licorice, and they love salty, sour or very fruity candy.  Generally speaking, American candy of today is either supersweet (sickly sweet), or chocolatey, and that is different from the Swedish candy.  Swedes also like mixes of flavors (salt & sour, etc.).

Turkisk peppar ('Turkish peppar').  Horribly hot-spicy hard licorice candy with a dry powdery inside with ammonium chloride (salmiak) powder.  Great!

Classic Swedish candy called Gott & Blandat (= Good and Mixed).  It includes sweet and salty licorice and wine gum. This is the traditional classic kind and there are also newer kinds around (salty, sour, etc.). 

 Djungelvrål ('Jungle howl') are supersalty little licorice pieces that are very chewy and good.... also with ammonium chloride, which some people of this household call 'diaper candy' - I think ammonium chloride salt is a very acquired taste. You either hate it or love it, kind of like celery and cilantro.

 Salta katten ('The Salty Cat') comes in tiny old-fashioned small paperboxes and are small pieces of licorice, also with ammonium chloride.  Really good stuff!  I love the design - check out the tongue of the cat!

 

Dajm is a long, hard, flat crispy, hard caramel piece that is covered by milk chocolate. You can also buy it as small individual pieces in small wrappers.  No licorice here!

Then there is of course Swedish fish - WHICH DOES NOT EXIST IN SWEDEN.  This is the American version of Swedish fruity, chewy, sugary candy, which in Sweden comes in many shapes and forms, not just red fish.  The most common are 'sega råttor' (= chewy rats), which often are green, yellow, red or maybe even in black (licorice).  Oh, and this custom of calling non-black things licorice as you do in the US, that doesn't exist in Sweden.  Licorice is always black and always has true licorice plant extract in it.

Christmas stories from New Jersey

Reflections and lessons learned this year. 

1. It is actually snowing on our Christmas Eve!  Snowing, unexpected, and wonderful.  We are getting a white Christmas after all. Lets see if it lasts until tomorrow morning.

2.  I know you should buy local, but sometimes you need to buy further-local to get the really good stuff:  Christmas ham from Dakins Farm in Vermont, and many kinds of Vermont cheeses...  And yes, red currants from Chile, which is a sin, but they tasted better than expected. Homemade green tomato chutney balanced it all out on the cheese plate.


3.  Our little gingerbread train put together by AREA and AC.  The kit didn't come with a smoke stack on the locomotive, so that had to be added, and then moved to the right spot (I will say no more... you would think that based on the number of train pictures in this house that the position of a smokestack wouldn't be a strange fact :)  Note the siding track, and the rock sugar trees that fell over in the Sandy hurricane.  Chocolate and licorice fills up the tender.


4.  Never get a blue spruce as a christmas tree.  They look great - dense and full, but the needles are horror stories.  I had to put on a raincoat with the hood up to be able to get under the tree to get the tree stand attached.  This is a really mean tree - we wore thick gloves when we put on the lights.  I prefer the softer Norway spruces... So, our tree this year is a true sharpie... and decorated similarly.


5.  If you make Jansson's temptation with cream instead of milk  it tastes about 50 times better.

6.  After you make Swedish meatballs, save the drippings and fat from the pan and add it to the brunkål (brown cabbage), and that will also taste 50 times better.

7.  For gravlax, simplest is the best - salt, sugar, dill, and black pepper.... and a giant hunk of sockeye salmon from the wildest of Alaska. If you want the recipe, just holler here on the blog.

OK snapshot: Napp

Drag för näbbgädda? {fishing tool for 'untranslatable Swedish species '?}

Seen in Stockholm, of course.

Gothenburg's Horticultural Society - an oasis in a city

In the middle of the Swedish city of Göteborg (Gothenburg) is a park owned and managed by the old Horticultural Society (Trädgårdsföreningen - look, they got all the umlaut vowels into that word!).  It has a large rose garden, a little charming cafe, lawns and old trees as well as an old Victorian conservatory.  We spent some time here last weekend, enjoying the spring sun and outside temperatures only a handful above freezing.

Trees formed like American telegraph poles is a very western European thing.  I think these might be beeches.  In the background is the cafe building.

Succulents are awaiting warmer weather in their sandboxes in one of the transplant houses. I liked the organized way they were planted. Doesn't it remind you of an army on a square someplace?

The cafe is in the old wagon barn, tall ceilings, old brick floor, and very vintage furniture.  Creaky chairs! 

The cappucino and the flourless chocolate cake with real whipped cream was great.  MiracleWhip and other synthetic white frostings don't exist in Sweden, so real food rules.

In the greenhouse is one room all filled with camelias, wonderfully scented even if a bit overpowering if they flower all at the same time. There were bumblebees in here too, which must live in the greenhouse.

The aquatic greenhouse is gorgeous.  An old square pond in the center, hanging tropical pitcher plants above and ferocious snakehead fishes in the water below.  There are warning signs not to put your fingers in the water or you will get bitten.  I was surprised they had put in snakehead fishes since they are invasive and horrible, but apparently they were there to eat the cichlids that were eating the waterlily leaves.  Oh, all the tings we do to control nature!


Some floating aquatic plants, mostly water lettuce (Pistia).

SILL

New design, clearly inspired by the design culture in the 1950´s in Sweden. Here the kitchen towel "Sill" by Marianne Nilsson. More towels and fabrics from Almedahls here. I like this fabric too, "I svampskogen" av David van Berckel.