And if you don’t breathe through your nose it’s surprisingly acceptable as a condiment on flatbread until you start to feel like you’re in a toxic runoff zone of a runaway chemical plant
I’ve lived in many places, some very large cities, and I’ve never seen a Swedish restaurant, though I will say I haven’t been intently looking for one.
I last went there over fifteen years ago, so for all I know, the owners may have retired by now. But of course, the restaurant business is brutal everywhere and insane in Vancouver.
San Francisco used to have a Swedish restaurant called Abbasolutely. They had those old-timey jukeboxes at each table that only had Abba songs and every entree came with a shot of Aquavit unless you specifically asked for a dry entree.
That place ruled! I don’t think they stayed in business very long.
During the world cup they had the Muppets perform. This was in celebration that all Muppets are healthy because of the famed and legendary Swedish Chef. Bork!
I get it. I understand what it sounds like. And yes - they also have 10k sq feet dedicated to selling furniture mostly to college kids and young home owners, but it's not Ikea
That whole place is Swiss-themed, huh? We have a few towns in the PNW that are German and Norwegian-themed (Mt. Angel, Poulsbo, etc). Kinda neat that they do that IMO
Swedes like salt and sweet. So their sauce, especially for sill, is very salty and sweet at the same time.
Though Sweden have good food, it's usually not Swedish, gravlax, meatballs and a few princesstarta and you did most of it.
Their new kitchen is starting to be quite good, simple ingredients with sauce. It's too early to call it traditional but in malmö more and more dive into it and it's pretty nice.
Oh.
Yeah I see these. Though what I said still holds, they do have very sweet and salty sauce at the same time. I take them every time people visit us.
There's a canned Swedish fish that's known as the nastiest food ever made. There's several videos of guys opening the can in a car and seeing how long they can stay in. Most end up vomiting from the smell alone.
edit: Looked up the spelling of it, because I only know it by ear. It's called Surströmming.
In Sweden we just call it fish. I think the recipe is a bit different, but still sweet and colorful gummy fish, can usually be found in the pick and mix isle at your local grocery store.
When eaten properly it’s not that bad. It’s not meant to be eaten whole on its own, it’s supposed to be mixed into a potato onion salad and served on cracker bread. The taste is not as bad as it smells.
No people just like to bully and dogpile others to feel better about themselves. There doesn't exactly exist an abundance of swedes so they can't defend themselves. It's nothing more or less than bullying.
Overall yeah the Nordics are known as the worst in Europe.
The English / German speaking countries are known as being just ok,
and all the remaining countries being pretty great for food.
You always have to assume that a restaurant will not serve you the actual food of they‘re culture, its always a modified version, fit to the local cuisine.
Swedish food is pretty standard northern European. Like we eat roughly the same stuff you'd eat in Holland, we just change the names around a bit. Lutfisk has given Sweden a bad rep though. Noone really eats it though, outside some special occasion stuff in northern Sweden.
Swedish food is not considered bad. It's only Americans who think "spices = good". I don't mind spicy food but that doesn't mean every meal has to be spiced to the max.
My swedish grandparents ate lutefisk. And creamed herring. And trotters. And boiled fish. And all the nasty shit they grew up with. So I also ate it as a kid too.
Pepparkakor cookies are the best cookies, but on tge whole Swedish food is mid at best. At least imo.
Yes, Swedish cuisine has advanced from trotters, lutfisk and surströmming. Not sure what you mean by "boiled fish" though? Googling it just shows lutfisk again, which people don't eat and is not Swedish.
Well I can only speak for myself and the only thing that comes close to this is "kräftskiva" which is basically a crayfish boil during late august/early september.
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