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THE LOCAL RECIPES

RECIPES

How to make Swedish rhubarb and ginger jam

This very Swedish jam works great together with a slice of cheese. This recipe was shared with The Local by food writer John Duxbury.

Published: 3 June 2016 06:59 CEST
How to make Swedish rhubarb and ginger jam
Rhubarb and ginger jam. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food

Summary

Makes: 4 medium jars

Preparation: 15 minutes

Cooking: 25 minutes

Total: 40 minutes + 2 hours soaking

Ingredients

1kg (8 cups) rhubarb

1kg (5 cups) jam sugar

1 unwaxed lemon, zest and juice

75g (3oz) stem or crystallized ginger, finely diced

25g (1oz) fresh peeled giner

1 tsp butter

Method

1. Sterilize three or four clean jam jars by placing in an oven at 130C for ten minutes.

2. Wash the rhubarb and cut into two centimetre lenghts. Place in a large bowl.

3. Add the jam sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and finely diced stem or crystallized ginger.

4. Finely grate the fresh ginger into the bowl. Give everything a good stir, loosely cover with a shower cap or clingfilm (food wrap) and leave to macerate for two hours, stirring occasionally.

5. Pop a few saucers in the freezer.

6. Pour the macerated fruit into a preserving pan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved, and bring to the boil. Increase the heat and boil steadily, stirring occasionally so that it doesn't burn. Cook until the rhubarb is tender and the conserve has reached setting point – this should take between 10 and 20 minutes.

7. Remove the pan from the heat, leave to one side for five minutes and then remove the scum with a metal spoon. If any scum remains, add a teaspoon of butter and stir into the jam to dissolve the remaining scum.

8. Using a jam funnel, ladle into the sterilized jars and seal.

Tips

– To test for a set, turn the heat off and move the pan to one side. Drop ½ teaspoon of the jam onto a cold saucer, leave it for 30 seconds, then hold the saucer on its side. For a firm set, the jam should wrinkle when pushed with your finger.

– Don't worry too much about the setting point. The jam sets fairly well anyway, but if you overcook it slightly it will become a bit darker and more chutney-like, which you might actually prefer.

– I use quite a lot of ginger because my wife loves ginger. If you would prefer a more subtle hint of ginger, reduce the quantity of stem or crystallized ginger to 50g (2oz).

This recipe is published courtesy of John Duxbury, editor and founder of Swedish Food.

FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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