Although. I have lived here for 22 years now, and here in the US, there is still food that I really miss from Sweden. Food that is hard to get here, and if I really wanted, I have to cook it myself.
Today I want to talk about food. Food that I miss from Sweden. But I also want to talk about some things that I have learned to love here in the US. And some things we have both in Sweden and here in the US that are different between the two countries. So if you like food and are curious about some of the things that are hard to get over here, this is an episode for you. But before we start let me tell you a little bit about my first experiences here in the US. First of all, I felt that all food over here was bland and didn’t have much taste.
And the reason for that is that the food I was used to, back in Sweden, used so much more salt. Today, I have learned to appreciate the food I eat over here. And I am actually glad that I have cut down on salt consumption. Except for one thing, and that is my salt licorice candy. It is easier today to get a hold of here in the US. There are many places online where I can order it. But when I first moved here my family used to send me boxes, with salt licorice candy. Because that was the thing I missed the most.
Another thing is that I moved into a family that was a restaurant family. So we don’t cook at home very often. With one exception. My brother-in-law loves to cook and cooks for all the holidays. But besides that, we are mostly a restaurant family. And we eat out every day for lunch. We are not much for home cooking. And as I said, for some of the dishes I talk about today the only way for me to get them is if I cook them myself.
What I miss
Tunnbrödsrulle
So now let’s talk about what it is I miss. And the first thing is called tunnbrödsrulle. If I translate it means thin bread roll, but that doesn’t say anything about what it is. And the thing with tunnbrödsrulle is that I know other Swedes, that live here in the US that also talk now and then about tunnbrödsrulle.
So, what is it? First of all, in Sweden we have something called korvkiosk, It’s a hotdog stand but it is more of a food truck that is permanent. They are small little buildings where they sell hotdogs, burgers, and things like that. Usually, they don’t have any seating. You just go up to the window and order your food. And that’s where you can buy a tunnbrödsrulle. You start with a Swedish flatbread, a tunnbröd. And that is really hard to get here. You can get some kind of tunnbröd but it’s never the real kind so if I was to make one, I had to start by baking the bread myself. If it was to be genuine.
So on that tunnbröd, you put a little butter on it. Then you put some mashed potatoes, and a couple of hotdogs, and that’s a preference, if you want them to be grilled or if you prefer the boiled version that is more of a wiener dog. I like the wiener dog version. And then, all depending on your taste, you can put cucumbers, you can put ketchup, you can put other condiments in there. I only put one thing and that is räksallad (shrimp salad). This is a creamy salad made with creams and shrimp that has a lot of ingredients in it. So it’s thick and creamy. So my tunnbrödsrulle is the bread, the mashed potatoes, usually two wiener dogs, and then räksallad, (shrimp salad). Then you roll it together like a huge burrito. Usually, you get a fork too, to get all the goodies out. But that is probably the thing I have missed the most lately. And I have talked to my American family about it several times I said one day I have to make a tunnbrödsrulle. So if you ever go to Sweden, find a korvkiosk and order yourself, a tunnbrödsrulle. I promise you, you will love it.
Räksmörgås
And talking about shrimp salad. The second thing I miss a lot is räksmörgås, a shrimp sandwich. You can choose your favorite kind of bread. On that bread, you put hard-boiled eggs that are sliced. You can put a little Mayo on them. You put some lettuce, some tomatoes, and a huge mountain of peeled shrimp.
On top, you usually put a slice of cucumber and slice. a slice of lemon that you make a little cut in so you can twist them.
Flygande Jakob
The next meal I miss is Flygande Jakob, which will sound very strange to you. Flygande Jakob or translated flying Jacob is a dish invented in Sweden, and it’s like a casserole it starts with rice that you put in a casserole pan at the bottom, then you have cooked chicken that you cut into little pieces and put on top of the rice.
Then you have bananas that you slice and put the slices. on top of the chicken. On top of that, you make a sauce. Usually, I used thick cream that I whisked a little bit so it got a little thick and mixed that with chili ketchup to make a sauce. Your poor that sauce over all the goodies you have in your pan. And then on top of that, you put salted peanuts. You bake it in the oven.
And while that bakes you prepare bacon, crispy bacon, cut in little pieces And when the dish comes out, you sprinkle all this bacon on top of it. That is flying Jacob or Flygande Jakob in Swedish.
Swedish Christmas Ham
One thing I miss a lot is the Swedish Christmas ham. I talked a lot about Swedish Christmas food in the Christmas episode. The Swedish Christmas ham is a salt-cured, not smoked ham that you bake. Either bake in the oven or cook on top of your stove, until it’s ready Then you put a mix of egg yokes, mustard, and brown sugar that you paint on top of your whole ham. Then you had bread crumbs that you put on top, and if you want to be really Christmasy You can mix regular bread crumbs with crumbled, gingerbread cookies, and you put the ham in the oven for 10, 15 minutes for that to bake a little bit. The ham is usually eaten cold as part of Christmas smörgåsbord.
Matjessill
The other thing that’s seasonal that I miss is called Matjessill. This is a soused herring which is raw hearing that is soused in vinegar and other stuff to preserve it. And this is typical for mid-summer. This is eaten by cutting little pieces with gräddfil, which is sour cream, but a little different than the sour cream, we have here in the US. It’s a little thinner and not as sour. It’s a little sweeter in taste. So you eat this matjessill with boiled potatoes, usually fresh, the first potatoes of the summer, sour cream and chives that you have cut into tiny little pieces. It is a delicious summer part of a meal.
And some other little things
Then we have a whole bunch of ingredients or part of a meal that I miss. Lets start with breakfast. I really miss. Filmjölk. Filmjölk is fermented milk. It is. Almost like yogurt. Without any berries or anything. It’s natural fermented milk. The difference between yogurt and filmjölk is that when you ferment yogurt you heat up the milk to do this process. Filmjölk is fermented at room-temperature. It’s a little thinner than yogurt, and it is less sour again, the same difference as between gräddfil and sour cream.
I use to eat filmjölk as my breakfast with cereal or with berries or something. else sweet to put in it. I really miss my filmjölk.
Another thing I miss is knäckebröd . Knäckebröd is a Swedish crisp bread. And we eat it as a sandwich. You put a little butter on it. And for Christmas you put a slice of your Christmas ham, and maybe some apple sauce on top of that. That is delicious. Or you canhave knäckebröd with hard-boiled eggs. Eggs that you slice and then top that with the next thing that I miss….
And that is Kalles Kaviar. Kalles kaviar comes in a tube. It’s should be. Refrigerated. And it is made out of cod roe, it’s salted cod roe mixed with sugar, canola oil, and spices. And it’s thick in consistent. Slightly red, almost pink. And you buy it in a tube. As I said on top of your knäckebröd, and your sliced eggs. You put the Kalles kaviar. And that is something that I sometimes really, really miss. I can almost today, feel the taste of a knäckebröd sandwich with eggs and Kalles kaviar, just by talking about it.
Food in tubes
And talking about condiments Did you know that in Sweden you buy a lot of things, food, in tubes. One thing you can buy into tubes. Is Mayo. And one thing I miss is that you can buy flavored Mayo. You can buy Garlic Mayo, Lemon Mayo, a lot of different flavored Mayo. And I miss that.
And I also miss Bearnaise Sauce. That is very common in Sweden and I personally have a very strange habit of making Bearnaise sauce and put it on top of pasta. I know that is not common in Sweden. I don’t know where I got it from, but that was something we often did when I went to college.
Things I Like in USA
But as I said there are also, things that I wasn’t familiar with when I moved to the US that I really appreciate now. One of those things is the Turkey that we have on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. On Christmas I still prefer this Swedish ham, but for Thanksgiving, I really enjoy the Turkey and the green bean casserole. Those are two things I really have come to love for the holidays.
Another thing that I have started to appreciate that I don’t eat that often but that I like is the Mac and cheese. And that is probably the closest I would get to my favorite Mac and Bearnaise sauce. If you replace the cheese in Mac and cheese with Bearnaise sauce instead You would get something similar. So mac and cheese is something we never had in Sweden.
Another thing I love is hoagies. Or as they call them in some places, subways. That wasn’t something we.made very often in Sweden. And maybe, you can say that a hoagie is the US equivalent to a tunnbrödsrulle in Sweden. Depending on what you like, you can fill it with any meat, any cheese, and any vegetables you want. And it’s really, really good. One thing that. You do with your hoagie here that I have learned to appreciate that we never did in Sweden was to use Mayo for our sandwiches. Not just for a hoagie. Today, if I want to make an egg sandwich like. the räksmörgås I talked about I wouldn’t put butter on it. I would put Mayo. Whereas we in Sweden used butter instead. So that’s another thing I have learned to appreciate. To use, Mayo as part of my sandwich and I would really be happy if I would get garlic mayo or lemon mayo to use when I create the sandwich.
The Same But Different
There are three things that we have both in Sweden and the US but that are different in the two countries. One is how we eat meatballs. Meatballs are very often here served the the Italian way. Bigger meatballs, with pasta and tomato sauce.
Well, let’s talk about Swedish meatballs. First of all the Swedish meatballs are made out of a mix of beef and pork. They are usually smaller. in size. And a real Swedis meatball dinner is served with a cream. sauce, cooked potato or maybe mashed potatoes, and lingonberries. I love them both. And Swedish meatballs are actually something I have made over here from time to time.
The second thing we have in both countries that are different is lasagna. Here it is usually made using Ricotta cheese. While in Sweden we don’t use ricotta instead we make a white sauce. a bechamel sauce. And when layering on the layers where you put ricotta cheese here we would put the bechamel sauce. Not a big difference. But it makes a different result.
The third thing that is different is pancakes. What you do call pancakes here, if I would like that in Sweden I have to call it American pancakes because our pancakes are called crepes over here. They are thin, no baking powder in our pancake mixture. So we make them thin. And it is not breakfast food in Sweden. As a kid. I loved when we had pancakes for dinner. We usually ate them with lingonberries or some other kindof jam.
I hope you found this interesting. It was a very non-serious topic today. But in my next episode we will be a little bit more serious. We will talk about censorship and freedom of speech in Sweden.
As we say in Sweden. Hej Då!
