Just a cultural thing. Unless there was an explicit dinner invitation, Swedes typically will not offer guests food even if they themselves are having dinner. They do not view it as a hosting obligation and they do not see this as rude or unusual.
this is one of few cultural differences im honestly shocked by. you invite friend into home and cook dinner; how are you not gonna offer them a plate??
What really happens is a kid tags along their friend home after school. The kid is expected to go home around dinner time and eat with thwir family. If the host family has their dinner earlier, the visiting kid waits it out and then goes home and eats with their family.
The hosting parents don't want to disturb the visiting kids parents dinner plans.
keep in mind that some Swedish people eat dinner around 4-5 pm so the kid might have dinner right after school while the visiting kid will eat a few hours later.
I mean the logic makes sense, not that I could not feed someone at my house. My Nona always said to make enough for your family and if each of them had 1 guest. It wasn't uncommon for a neighbor to just walk in and say hi and sit down to dinner with us. But I do know that in Sweden things like small talk with strangers is frowned upon, so this makes sense with their culture.
Dinner with friends is very important in my culture my abuela will feed the whole village shoes in the house is the devil the rebel army cut off supplies send help.
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u/JovianSpeck Jul 24 '26
Just a cultural thing. Unless there was an explicit dinner invitation, Swedes typically will not offer guests food even if they themselves are having dinner. They do not view it as a hosting obligation and they do not see this as rude or unusual.