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FOOD AND DRINK

Why Cinnamon Bun Day is an enduring Swedish success

Today is Cinnamon Bun Day (kanelbullens dag) in Sweden, but did you know that complex questions around national identity could be tied to the event?

Why Cinnamon Bun Day is an enduring Swedish success
A pile of delicious cinnamon buns. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

October 4th marks National Cinnamon Bun Day, and unlike many attempts to use a special date to create excitement around a particular foodstuff, flower or even profession, this one is actually pretty popular among Swedes. So just what is the secret to its success?

According to Jonas Engman, an ethnologist at Stockholm’s Nordiska museet, there has always been a strong tendency among people and groups to designate certain days for specific things. Yet few have been able to achieve the popularity of the day Swedes set aside to pay tribute to their favourite sticky treat.

“Cinnamon bun day is a clear exception to the rule. A link has been achieved with a notion of the traditional, as well as food,” Engman told news agency TT.

RECIPE: How to make your own Swedish cinnamon buns

The day was invented in 1999 by Sweden’s Home Baking Council (Hembakningsrådet) as a “tribute to our most beloved bun and those who bake it”.  The Nordiska ethnologist thinks its endurance is linked to Sweden being in the midst of a process where citizens are looking for a new national identity.

That provokes a look backwards in time towards a romanticized view of the past and the days when the country was a farming society, he says.

“Romanticized national ideas are very strong, particularly in the political sphere. It’s not just the parties that are linked to it, but it also has something to do with how we are negotiating the national experience of being Swedes,” Engman explained.

“In turn, that’s linked to globalization and migration, which challenges much of the image of national identity from the 1800s and 1900s,” he explained.

So it turns out Cinnamon Bun Day can partly thank a Swedish identity crisis for its perseverance.

It probably doesn’t hurt that the sugary buns taste good, too.

READ ALSO: Six sticky facts about Sweden's beloved bun

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.

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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