Starting our 4th year in Sweden

On the first of September we celebrated the end of our 3^rd year in Sweden. That week we also welcomed our friend form SA (see previous post) with particularly Swedish style food (see below). 

Very typical Swedish food to welcome Christoff - Prinskorv (small sausages) and köttbullar (meatballs)

Very typical Swedish food to welcome Christoff - Godis (assorted candy) and knäkebröd (crackers/hard bread) 

Showing Christoff all the sights was a nice break from a very busy time workwise. With all the people now back from their summer holidays and the new year starting for schools and universities, September is always a very busy time with lots of things happening. It is also the start of autumn and more and more yellow leaves began to appear everywhere. We had a very wet and rainy summer (with even one thunder shower! – very unusual here, the fifth time I heard thunder in Sweden), but a few weeks of nice weather towards the end of August. The last week or two however, became noticeably colder and autumn arrived in its full glory. 

Double rainbow after a very rare thundershower

When I was younger I disliked autumn and preferred the new beginnings and happy floweriness of spring. Nowadays I kind of like the sweet melancholy of autumn. I started to notice the usual signs associated with autumn here in Sweden; the cidery smell of apples rotting under the apple trees, the chestnuts ripening on the trees, lots of bugs flying around trying to stock up and procreate before winter starts, stalls selling chanterelle mushrooms and blueberries from the surrounding forests, bushes full of fat ripe bright-red rosehips complemented by red hawthorne bushes and trees everywhere. I really like the colorful autumn with the anticipation of the approaching winter. We hope for a nice, cold and snowy winter. Our first two winters here were ideal with lots of snow and sub-zero temperatures during the whole winter (people from SA- yes - this means that the temperatures did not go above 0 for the whole winter- not even in the days). The last winter here was not as nice, however, the continuous snowing and melting caused a lot of sludge and the lack of permanent snow made the days much darker and dreary. This year, some weather experts predict a cold winter due to sunspot activity and the lack of ice in the arctic (ironically), so we really hope that the predictions are accurate and our fourth winter will be a white one. Here’s to three years in the land of snow and ice! Skål!  

C&R

Food Filled Fridays: Strange ways of preparing food (Swedish Style)

Since coming to Sweden we found that the food we have here are somewhat different from the food we had when living in South Africa. This is in part explained by the differences in produce and ingredients. However, with surprise, we found that the method of preparation may also be contributing to some of the variation we experience. The following video may provide some answers…



We still have to master some of the tecniques used in Sweden :)

R&C

Food Filled Fridays... on Saturday, the Carina edition (Knäckebröd)

This is another edition of food filled Fridays. This post is of course a day late. When we started food filled Fridays, we chose the name because it sounded nice. We did not really think logically about it. If we did we would not have chosen Friday. After a week of hard work, writing articles and reading literature, a blog at the start of the weekend is not funnest thing to do. Thus we will continue with food filled Fridays and try to write a post every now and then about Swedish food, although it will not necesarily be posted on a Friday.

Today’s edition is about a very typical and traditional Swedish staple food - Knäckebröd. It is flat and dry and made mainly from rye flower. Usually its sold as a large, round, flat bread with a hole in the middle. Its history in Nordic countries goes back ages and the Vikings most probably also ate Knäkebröd. It is still very popular among Swedes and is eaten with various toppings like pickled herring or caviar (which by the way is sold in a tube!). It keeps for ages if kept dry and is indeed a very practical type of food. In olden days people baked their whole stash of Knäkerbröd in the summer after the harvest and stored it in a high, dry place hanging on a broomstick (therefore the hole in the middle). Today most varieties still look like the original Knäkerbröd, (large, round with a hole in the middle), although you also get the modern, more practical, smaller, rectangular version. We also like knäkebröd, and call it "krakerbrood" the Afrikaansenized version, but eat it as a snack rather than a meal.

Hope you enjoyed the special edition of food filled Fridays – (by Carina -Ronnie insisted on this addition because of all the funny words I use). Look out for more soon.

C&R