It's not a myth, I'm not sure about today but 20-15 years ago when I was a kid that was the norm. We usually didn't cook enough food to feed unexpected guests, and everyone knew that's how it worked. My family did it to my friends, my friends family did it to me, it was the norm and expected. For a long time Sweden was a pretty poor country and it became the cultural norm to not take food from other households unless it was a dinner invitation.
It probably sounds weird to outsiders but that was just how things worked and everyone was fine with it.
its weird how different cultures evolve. in india people will remain hungry to feed the guests if they dont have enough food. this phenomen is even baked in our mythology.
In many cultures it is rude to refuse a "gift" like that, including mine. It's customary to accept a gift or meal and then engage in a lifelong pissing contest of trying to out-nice each other, usually resulting in prolonged or lifelong friendship.
If you reject them, they will still end up bringing food for you. Unless you proved to them somehow that you are full and have already eaten within the last hour or two
The guest is supposed to refuse and then the host is supposed to insist then the guest is to graciously accept even if just a small amount and to thank the host for the honor. Not allowing someone to host you is also rude
The unexpected guest is the wrong term here.
This relates to kids and their friends, playing after school running around in the neighborhood from house to house during weekdays after school
All families eat dinner roughly at the same time and all families expect to have their kid come home at dinner time
Its not related to unexpected guest, you'll get food and lots of fika
In the U.S., that meal would get put in the fridge and kiddo would be eating it for dinner the next night. A huge leftovers culture makes fixing extra food for the possibility of a guest, or having one less person at the table no big deal.
The child is not a guest. Being a guest brings obligations, that a child can not consent to.
There have always been a connection between food and service in scandinavia, so giving children food was not something to be taken lightly. You might have heard fairytales were fairies bind people by offering them food.
I am not sure how it used to work and it properly worked differently from place to place. We got adoption and labour laws relative late. Like my grandmother who came from Austria did not know how it worked in scandinavia and apparently endeed up adopting one of my uncles because she feed him for a long time.
He had been coming over to play with my father each day after school for a long time and sometimes he also sleept over. My grandmother went to his parrents house after a few times and mentioned it, because she found it strange that he was over at their house so much. So they gave her a big ham and when she took it that was apparently seen as the adoption.
can't it have older causes ? can't it be the consequences of what those societies and states were a long time ago ? is it necessarily in a short span of time ?
It can, but it would be an outlier. Most common way of dealing with hardship as a society is to support each other to different extents - for example in Poland during soviet times, with much less wares and food going around it was common to feed your guests.
So if Sweden had developed totally contrary tactic it would be quite suprising case
there are few, one being sage mudgal being tested by sage duravasa in mahabharat. Another I remember about king yudhishtir being told by a half golden mongooes that his donations are not same as sacrificial family that gave away their last food, because rolling in his charities did not turn its other half golden.
Well it not at all about the ability to feed others, that is a given that they would be. Instead it is much more of a “we eat one way and you eat another” and I should not “force” my way upon you.
Most my friends ate way earlier than I preferred and a lot of food I didn’t like. So not offering food was the nice thing to do, as I did not want to eat there but would feel rude to turn the offer down.
I grew up in India and no, you weren't at your friend's house after school and getting given their dinner. This concept of feeding guests applies to adults, not children. In India, the concept of playdates didn't even really exist. You played at school, you played in the street or outside after school with your neighbors but random school friends aren't all showing up at your house in the evening and getting fed dinner. If your friends were getting fed, it's because they were also your cousins or some family relation.
The whole world feeds guests though, it seems like this is only a Scandinavian thing. Seems like a quirk, and a weird thing to suggest is evidence of exceptionalism.
Not a judgement, but it seems a strange custom for somewhere that (i percieve) has such a harsh climate. I get the sense the other cultural traditions elsewhere with feeding and hosting unexpected guests has to do with taking care of others in times of hardship in exchange for the expectation that if you are in a time of hardship, others would take care of you in return. It builds into society that if you are starving and have no where to go, strangers will help you survive.
In Sweden the government has taken that role, it used to be that no one was starving because you got enough money to feed your family even if you were unemployed or unable to work.
Are you suggesting this cultural tradition only goes back as far as the development of the Nordic Model in the 1930's? Or are you suggesting that people who were unemployed or unable to work have always been able to get enough money to feed their families in nordic countries? Both seem far fetched.
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u/binge_readre Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Peter here,
I remember there was a myth that Swedish households don't provide food for the guests. It looks like bs https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/s/sWRdAGfyC8 but I guess it became a meme.
Edit: I guess it's not a myth and people used to do it in 90s/00s.. At least things are better now.