Episode 3: Food

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Swede-ish with me, your beautiful, everlasting and eternally young host, D-Bug.

Now, this episode is all about a very, very special topic to, I think, a lot of immigrants' hearts. It's food in Sweden. So, let's begin. Food and should I say cuisine and Sweden. If it was a Venn diagram, I wouldn't normally say that it's two separate circles. The best food in Sweden is not really from Sweden, but we have a couple of different things we're going to talk through. So we're going to start off with some traditional food. That's it. Oh, where do we begin?

And now, as an Irish person, potatoes are my forte, my joie de vivre, as they say in La France. In Ireland, we have like 14 main types of potatoes. In Sweden, they like to keep things simple, as we know. So they have fluffy potatoes, salad potatoes, and new potatoes. Only three. If a shop tries to rebrand those, they're taken off the market and the company's fine for rocking the boat.

Now, thankfully, the Swedes do like mashed, roast, and boiled potatoes, so we can't really go wrong. But in one particular case, they have managed to craft a salad potato that I dare say... might be the best type of potato, and that is the Hasselback. Now, not the hunky lifeguard from Baywatch. That's Hasselhoff. Hasselbacken is like the restaurant in your Gordon. now which is if you don't know it's one of the eastern islands of stockholm and it is often claimed to have created

the Hasselback potato in 1953 by Chef Liff Ellison, who's a trainee under the director of Chef Rune Erik Lager, who was there in the 1950s. A bit of history for you. Did I know that before I researched it? No. So basically, it's roast potatoes. But you slice into the potato at thin intervals and about two or a third of the deep into the potato. And then you roast it with butter, optionally cheese also. God tier potato. Like everything is perfectly crispy.

perfectly fluffy it i have seen that you actually if you blanch it in salt water for like an hour those potatoes when they're cut it makes it even softer so i have to try that you know to experiment things to keep the relationship alive that's what you have to do in your 30s um But potatoes is also a sore spot because when I think of potatoes, I think of chips, or as a lot of the world outside of the UK and Ireland call them fries. Sweden, when you're making chips or fries,

You have to chop the potato, you soak it in salt water, you wash it and then you fry it in oil. Every time. Fresh chips. That is why the UK and Ireland is the home of fish and chips and it's how you make good chips. why are the restaurants frying frozen oven fries? Every restaurant, even the ones I've been to that are like nice, no, I'm not a fan of the eater, but like nice establishments, they're fucking frozen fries that are fried in oil.

Frozen. I can tell by the color, the taste, the texture, and the shame that these are fucking frozen fries. You know, I know Max. Yeah, we'll get to the takeaway later. But it's the one thing I'm like, why? Sweden, fish and chips is, I have gotten them. Malmö is very good. But the chips are always a saddest point. I don't know if Sweden have gotten into the frying culture. I mean, I know that's why most Brits are like, you know.

have cardiac issues because we do fry everything um but i don't eat fried food because i'm a model and very thin um so potatoes yeah but it was sore topic but the Hasselback potato if you have not tried it you have to try it um

But we're going to another. When I think of Swedish culture, there's so many different things of food cuisine that I'm like, oh my fucking God. Pickling. So imagine the year 1567. No internet. there's also no freezers so your hello fresh box lasts even less you know um so you need to make it last so cue salt vinegar water that is how you make a brine to pickle things should everything be pickled no

Didn't stop the Swedes though. They didn't stop at pickling vegetables. No, no, no, no, no, no. They thought fish would be great to pickle also. The Swedish tongue can withstand bitter flavors so strong a Geiger counter could go off. Stockholm syndrome is real. It has the sweet believing that strong pickled things are tasty. In my opinion, the only thing that should be pickled is pickles. I will allow some things with a stretch like beetroot and onions. They're the fringes. But pickled...

cucumbers or gherkins, you know, whatever it comes, saltgurka, as they call it in Swedish. That to me is what pickles are made for. It's made for things that have a fatty food base. So you have a pickle, which is an acid to cut it. So it doesn't, it's not as oily.

But if you don't know, pickled herring or sill is traditionally eaten at Christmas or Easter. It's the one dish I will always skip over on a Yule board. I go straight to the cuts, the warm meats. I will not eat raw fish. And in my opinion, fish should always be cooked. we don't need to pickle it we do have air fryers you know we do have fridges um smoked salmon also again smoked i will allow it's another it's an old term it's better but

Why can't you just preserve the fish with microplastics like the rest of us? Like, we don't need this bitter raw... And don't get me started on sewer strumming. My God. Pickling. Ugh.

Oh, gross. So if most people think of Sweden, they do think of meatballs. You know, it's the thing where everyone across the world in Ikea will get meatballs because they're, you know, I mean, they're basically sawdust. But meatballs are made of meat. They're grown inside IKEA and shipped worldwide. I do like meatballs. I like meatballs even since I was a kid. But some restaurants think that five is an ideal amount for like 270 kroner.

I personally think because I'm a grown adult, 12 is the optimum amount. Not much more. But one thing that I always think of when I get meatballs is if you ever get the refrigerated ones in the supermarket in the bag or things, why do they smell of human centipede? What are... Why do they need to preserve it so well with ass gas? Literally, I open up the packet and I was like, I'm not going to eat that. It's so gross.

But fun fact about the author, which is me. I used to eat meatballs in a gravy from a tin. Like when I was a kid, like they're called Freybentos in the UK and Ireland. And they're like literally what you do to survive a nuclear winter. But, oh my God. Something hits different with that. What? Questionable meat.

um with that gravy that's probably shaved a few years of my life as a kid but i used to eat those meatballs and faked and mashed potatoes which is one of the ones you add water to reconstituted potatoes as a four-year-old and also in college. I don't know why I share that, but that to me is what I think of, when I think of meatballs, my nuclear winter meatballs back home. And every time I go back home, I am kind of thinking like,

Maybe if the Swedes, like, they do like the tinned beans, but if they thought about tinned meatballs, maybe, you know, maybe that's a market we can get into. Um, oh, meatballs. I do like meatballs. One thing I'm surprised, actually, is that meatballs in Subway don't do the meatball marinara.

So yeah, I don't know if you know, in most places, countries, they have a meatball marinara, which is like a ragu or tomato sauce, Italian style, with meatballs in it in the sub. It's really good with cheese. But they don't really do it, which I think is very strange. Or maybe I haven't seen it. Most of the times...

I don't think I've seen any. No. Okay, so meatballs. Where do we go for meatballs next? Fast food. Now, fast food in Sweden is actually pretty decent.

um but fast food if you think about it combines sweden's two favorite things it combines food and queuing this is the perfect dream they get they get to take a number you get to wait and queue that's basically swede's version of foreplay um and they get the nice tasty food uh the main chain that we have in sweeten is called max it's also one of the first chains i believe here back in like 1960 1968 was it

um they opened their first restaurant up in the northern part of sweden i do remember that because i saw an ad so i mean i think we learned about it in my swedish class um now why up there in the north they do the first things

I think maybe just like the lack of vitamin D increases the umami of the burgers. I'm not really sure. I'm a model, not a food historian. Don't ask me. But as an international, internationale, um i've tried a lot of different chains so we do have mcdonald's and burger king here too but i say i must say max is pretty good it's like their chicken burgers are one of the few that don't use the cornflake children burgers they actually have chicken fillets which is like you know

the proper way to make a chicken burger it's basically a mashed chicken breast um that's the only one sweden's discovered this in 2023 before that it was literally all just like chicken kid burgers that are basically just giant chicken nuggets that's not a real chicken burger um

and i know the swedes love their beef cheeseburgers and stuff but the chicken phillip burger so is it's a way to go um they don't mark those in the the ranked restaurant sadly um but you know as everyone knows max's hamburger sauce nectar of the gods i would stick a straw paper of course you know hashtag save the turtles um and drink it like you can buy it in the supermarket it's that good um i wish that most places most chain restaurants would do their like burger

not burger king mcdonald's big mac sauce i should also sell that it is basically mac sauce um but i do want to think like we can probably research quantum computing If you don't know, it requires extreme cold temperatures. But if we research the science about how max fries can go from roasting to freezing in 6.8 seconds, I think we can actually conquer quantum computing. Those things are basically the reason why I got an air fryer.

Because they always arrive cold. No matter if you're working 100 meters, they always just seem to get absolute freezing. They're colder than the frozen chips you get. Or the frozen chips they use. Yeah, my fast food is, I must say, like, yeah, we have a lot of different things in Stockholm, like Laneta, great, oh my God, great tacos, which are going into the airport at Arlanda Express, which I don't know about you, having a...

tube in the air full of people who've just loaded up on mexican food like why would i want to be in the container with someone who's shitting themselves constantly luckily i don't get any effect with it but that is not a pre-flight imagine going on a 10-hour trip to dubai And someone hasn't eaten tacos. Just think about that. The filters are not strong enough. They're going to burn a hole in the HEPA filters. But there's some nice food for you. So...

Another type of food that I think was very, very strange when I came to Sweden is that the tube. They put a lot of food in tubes. And I don't, I never really understood why. Like tube, I think is... Primarily for astronaut food or toothpaste. But it's used so many different things in Sweden. Personally, okay, tomato puree and some sauces I don't overly mind of in a tube, you know. But why would someone have thought putting caviar in a tube?

And then adding that caviar onto boiled eggs. I think that's one of the most disgusting. And every time I see someone eating, I'm literally like that, you know, this country is wild. You know, if I'm talking about Kala's caviar, like the fact that like, oh yeah, put some on a fucking ball deck. I was like, that is literally like not even 1940s ration food. And tubed cheese.

Now back home, we get spreadable cheese in a tub, which I also think is fucking gross. But to put it in a tube is just nasty. I know there's just some weird fucker in Baroas or something that just sucks from the tube directly. So, can you imagine, like, more, like, you know, just, like, at a marathon, like, give me my tube. Oh, no, that's actually turning my stomach now. Okay, so let's play a minigame.

Things that I think will make its way into tubes for consumption in the coming years in Sweden. Number one, snus. They're probably going to make a snus paste. Just fucking, you know, lash it into the gum. like you're getting bangella for your you know or the thing that they use to um adhere a dentures to the roof of your mouth it's nice uh ice cream like ice cream in a tube as it comes in a tub i kind of make a tube you know small tube on the go princess cake

It's mostly cream. Probably can just go in a cake also. Jam, silt, as I say, Americans call it jelly. That's something I'm surprised has actually never been in a tube. Like, it's kind of like, it's a conserve. It can last in ages. why is it not in the tube maybe because people like to look at observe the jam from the outside um licorice licorice probably makes way in the tube like licorice paste

Mandelmassa is also another thing. That's what we have on the Semla. That's why I'm not surprised it would actually be on the tube too. Some things where I'm looking at things in a jar, I'm like, the Swedes are probably trying to put that in a tube. Lube. Probably going to be lube in a tube. Tube loop. Why not put your yearly tax on a tube? They send it to you. Nutella. You see this kind of thing? It's the pastes and stuff. I'm like, why are they in tubs and not in tubes?

And your HelloFresh weekly meal, just fucking liquidise it in a tube, why not? It's much easier. They also cut down on waste even more. Like, oh, here's a child's meal for an adult. Well, we also fit in a child's tube. Tube food.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments. What do you think about cheap foods? Do you think it's weird? If people live in Sweden, I don't think they probably just don't realize that when they go to other countries. Now, the UK and Ireland is not the capital of good food. And you see half the stuff is just basically...

It has not changed from the medieval ages, but the tubes are definitely a point of contention for me. And I mean, this video is like, obviously, it's not meant to be a rant.

um or say but a lot of these things are really like explaining the food in sweden it's also kind of like mostly just through the lens of culture shock um like lunch culture is very strange inside a thing for me at least like you know um Because in Stockholm, it's very interesting. I can begin by explaining how it's done inside.

Ireland and the greatest British Isles like generally lunch is also 12 to 1 like that doesn't change you know we're lined in a sense but generally people will have like sandwiches or pastries or salad bowls you know this kind of they have like lighter lunches and then you'd have a heavier dinner later in the evening

So, you know, on a special occasion, like once a week, maybe you'll go get a burger or a Chinese, which are like, you know, it's not the, it's not the norm. It's more of the special occasion. But here it's very, it's different. Like, it's kind of like. You go and mostly have different cuisines, rich foods, and then I'm assuming people eat lighter. Once again, judging by HelloFresh portions, maybe they don't really eat in the evening.

um so it's kind of the inverse and i can understand in certain ways that oh people are like traveling and they have a long day at work and they need the energy 12 so i can understand why you would have but to me it's like why wouldn't you just have a big lunch of like a big massive salad a big baguette filled with stuff because

mostly for us it's it's kind of like it's very normal to have a selection of different salads and meats and different things and you say you know they're cold or hot and you decide what you want to put in a tray or sandwich or baguette you know But here it's only getting very more recently. I've seen a lot more places where people are making their own salad bowls. But I can imagine when it came out, like the Swedish people were panicking, like, oh, my God, I have to choose.

They like the menu, they like the easy decision. They kind of like, you know, they don't want to really have to do much of the things here. So it's me like I do see it now around the office area I'm working in Stockholm and more people are going like bread and salt for the salad bar or the bagel street cafe, which doesn't do bagels anymore.

So it's just another street cafe. You can just make your own lunch with hot and cold foods. I think it's, one, it's healthier, but it's also kind of like, you get to choose what you want to eat. It's kind of, it's like, imagine like meal prepping, but live at the time.

So it's not really prepping, it's just meals. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. Is there any differences? Have you any noticed where you're, if you're not from Sweden or from Sweden, like, you know, maybe it's different than Malmö or Gothenburg or up in Umeå, or like... I'm not really sure, but Stockholm is going to be, you know, the corporate life seems to be have a fucking burger every day.

licorice is another interesting point like when I grew up like licorice was always like you said we got licorice all sorts you know but like no one would really eat licorice as long because always like unless it was like the cherry red licorice people wouldn't really do it. So, you know, the Lakritz Salmiak, it's a black tar basically here.

I think because the Swedish tongue has only bitter or salty regions on it, that's why they like it. Like licorice, yeah, with some sugary icing can be nice because the licorice is small to kind of, you know, to balance the sugar. um but here there's like a raw dog licorice like you know or even more to add salt to it like it's like a margarita of pain you know um enjoying the licorice it's like it's like like it's like self-flagellation to me

Like the pale guy in Angels and Demons just taking some licorice instead of whipping his back. That's kind of what to me is the same level. And it doesn't stop with the sweets. Like if there's licorice ice cream. Then they also moved on to licorice chocolate, licorice crisps or chips, depending on where you're from.

And I just think, like, Swedish society, they're afraid of experiencing joy without hardship. And if you notice from the TV, like, it's all trauma porn. So it's kind of like, what if we encapsulate that into a small black suite, you know? Like, I always think if you have something once and you don't like it, it's not for you. But something like, oh, no, you should have a few times. Like, that means you don't like it. And that's literally Stockholm syndrome. Like, you know.

To me, it's one of those things like, you know, if you don't like it the first time, it's not for you. Don't just keep doing it until your body accustoms to it. That's how we, that's like literally like poison. So, yeah, I know, licorice, ugh, gross.

Now, in terms of introducing food to Sweden, I've heard actually from people who own restaurants or people who have moved here that deal with things like, it takes actually quite a while for a Swedish... popular culture Swedish things to actually accept a foreign cuisine and they say it's like roughly about five years so that's why Sweden is behind

a lot of modern food trends or modern things about by five years compared to the rest of the world um as we know like with boba and things like that it takes a while to get here but once it does then generally it explodes in popularity but i don't know is it more like is the fear of trying something new

or just they see anything foreign as weird or like, you know, that's too spicy. It's like, that's black pepper. Yeah, but I think there's certain things that would make its way into Sweden eventually. Flavor? No, not flavor. Chicken strips.

So they do chicken nuggets. They do chicken, you know, but chicken strips or goujons, as we call it back home. It's like, you know, the breaded chicken strips. Like now, if you live in Stockholm, Shista has an amazing place called Maui Brown. It's a Malaysian chicken cuisine place. And oh my God, it has. the best chicken strip yeah they're halal if you're if you want to know but um

To me, it doesn't make no difference. But it's basically, you get like bits of chicken breast. You cut that up like usually to three or four pieces and you bread that in a flour-based thing and then you fry it. Like, paneer, chickling, pinna, I think they call it in certain places, but they're morse.

sticks I don't know like fresh meat like it has to be actual breast meat um I think cakes with jam in them will come to Sweden because if you eat princess torta there's no jam in that there's like here's a here's a millimeter like a gossamer thread of of jam now mr cake yeah mr cake that's why i put on so much weight they're um they put in a lot of stuff which is good um british style chinese curry so in a lot of chinese places they do like chow mein Adam, thanks.

But back home, we have, and it's not Asian. It is not Chinese curry. It definitely was made for the British palate. But it's kind of like a katsu curry that you get, like, you know, in different places. It's like a pepper-based brown curry. You don't really get it in Sweden. I think that would really make it, because you can put on everything. You can put on fries.

You can put it on, you know, obviously chicken with rice. I hope that that makes its way to the Asian culture. We also have a thing called spice bag, which, oh my God, it's literally cocaine in a bag. It's cheaper too. Soft bananas. I think Sweden will eventually get bananas that are soft and not the, you know, have the turgidity and the thing of the penis. Cauliflower cheese is another one. So basically...

The Swedes love gratin, like they will gratin anything, but they live it to potatoes and root vegetables. But then once they find out the cauliflower cheese, game changer. Cauliflower. Invest in cauliflower stocks right now because once they write that, you're going to be a millionaire. And yeah, I think other things like, no, shepherd's pie, beef, wellington. I think more pie-based things with pastry. They don't really do a lot of that over here.

And like, you know, like we're always at home with like steak and ale pie, chicken supreme pie. I think pies are neat to kind of, especially with such a cold like climate in the winter, we want to be nice and homely. The pies is the way to go. So I think they, I do know that they sell the pie dough. in the supermarkets, but I never see any savory pies. I think that's going to make its way to things. Maybe we'll call like, we'll make a restaurant about pies. What would it be called?

probably something inappropriate um but i mean that's that wraps up the kind of section on food like you know let me know what's your weirdest i love to hear the stories and things that people get irrationally angry over the smallest things here in sweden um i want to know the food ones like what what were the weirdest things that you've seen

So, now this week in Swedish news. So, interest rates. So, you know, it's all about saving money, apparently. Sweden Central back on Thursday cut its... key interest rate by a half a percentage point to 2.75%, which is the largest reduction in over a decade. So it's the fourth cut this year. Riksbank has said it's to provide further support to the economy and help inflation stabilize that target. Now, if you look at the...

graph over time it's only the last like two years it's gone like from like almost zero up to four percent um so nice because i you know i'm not that i'm hoping for a market price i would like to buy an apartment so it would be nice if the thing crash but it's nice that the um Interest rates are decreasing on loads and stuff. And also, apparently there was an issue in Spain because three Swedish nationals were on suspicion of trying to recruit minors to commit cries.

crimes included attempted murder and you know it's kind of wired like we all sweden got most children were going back to the mines of minecraft like you know getting them to do crime and not even in malmo to get them to do crime in spain I mean, would that be hashtag entrepreneur on LinkedIn maybe? Here's what trying to, you know, trying to recruit miners taught me about B2B sales. That would be my post. Congrats, Connor. Oh my God, you're great.

That's... No, I shouldn't be joking about that. Child labour is not... Unless they're paid, then they want to do it. Maybe. Who knows? So, now, the word of the week. Since we're talking about food, we have three words that you probably will not understand what they mean in English. It's... Gluten-free, lactose-free, and caffeine-free. Can you guess what those mean? Yeah, basically, it's gluten-free, lactose-free, and caffeine-free. I mostly get caffeine-free coffee because I don't die.

panic attacks um but it's nice it's the same things uh if you're coming here and you don't know anything about swedish or moving here it's the same words you can also ask them like hey you know if you're looking for coffee you know can i get decaf coffee they understand Lactose free, gluten free for those who are hashtag intolerant bitches. They're the words of the week that we're going to learn. And now we're going to head about our music. And now we're going to head about our music.

So the Swedish song of the week this week is Fading Like a Flower by Roxette. Most people know Roxette. And everyone was kind of like, there must have been love, but Roxette has some good other songs. I like Fading Like a Flower because I just love the piano intro. Even though the song was good too. That piano intro always gets me literally going. And our song in Swedish of the week is Håndon by Danny Sosia. It's a beautiful song about him becoming a dad and understanding what it's like.

his parents and the harmonies and it's great and the album cover is just red um as is my heart for danny's also So that's the songs for the week. You should try them out. They're available on all streaming platforms. I'll put a link down below somewhere so you can take a look at them. I hope you enjoy. um and i'm back in schedule yeah i took a break because i had work and holidays and sick and so much stuff going on you know but we are back we're going to do some more recording soon

I've got a few episodes lined up. I just need to record them. So they'll be coming every two weeks or every week, depending on if I'm very, very successful in being organized. But yeah, hopefully you all enjoy. And I can't wait to chat to you next week. And this has been Swedish with debug.