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CHRISTMAS

Six bizarre Swedish Christmas foods to try only if you’re very brave

It's Julbord (Christmas meal) season in Sweden, and that means the potential for unwitting foreigners to run into some pretty odd traditional yuletide foodstuffs.

Published: 5 December 2016 11:30 CET
Updated: 21 December 2023 10:00 CET
Six bizarre Swedish Christmas foods to try only if you're very brave
Nothing says 'Merry Christmas' like spelling it out in Swedish on a pig's head. Photo: Leif R Jansson/Scanpix

Here are six weird Swedish Christmas foods to look out for in the coming days…

1. Lutefisk

This slimy looking white stuff is a Swedish Christmas classic, and if slimy sounds bad enough in itself, then Lutefisk, or Lutfisk in Swedish, can be even harder to stomach once you know how it’s prepared.

You won’t find this at every Christmas meal, but the ones who do serve it will never be convinced of doing otherwise.

The dish is made by treating dried whitefish in lye for a period of days, which gives it its strange jelly-like texture. For those unaware what lye is, the Oxford English dictionary defines the substance as “a strongly alkaline solution, especially of potassium hydroxide, used for washing or cleansing”.

Yes, that’s right, some Swedes love nothing more at Christmas than to tuck into fish stewed in stuff that is also used in, among other things, soap making, oven cleaners and even getting rid of human bodies. Mmm, tasty.

2. Egg cheese

If you’re lucky enough to have friends or relatives from Bohuslän in the west of Sweden, you may find yourself presented with something called äggost this Christmas, which translated to English means “egg cheese”.

Along with being a brilliant example of how Sweden loves to take the literal approach to naming things, like Lutefisk, it’s a remnant from the days when Swedes had to come up with creative methods of storing food before the luxury of refrigerators existed.

The dish is made from combining curdled milk with eggs, then setting the mixture in a mold just like jelly, and it ends up with a similar texture too. Once it’s nice and wobbly, it can be served with either herring or jam, according to taste.

3. Dip in the pot

No, this isn’t something that happens when a bad Christmas meal provokes an upset stomach. Rather, dip in the pot or dunk in the stew (dopp i grytan) is a way of making the most of the Swedish Christmas ham by dipping bread into the reduced broth that the pork was cooked in.

It’s also one further reminder of the aforementioned Swedish habit of naming things very, very literally.

4. Mumma

The name of this heavy Christmas drink resembles a word in Swedish that is something like the English “yummy” (mums), and while we can’t verify if that’s the case, we can verify that it’s not for the faint-hearted. The drink typically contains no less than four kinds of alcohol (porter, lager, gin and port) to create an odd sort of Christmas cocktail.

Mumma first rose to prominence in Sweden during the 1500s, then experienced a renaissance in the 1900s, and though it’s not universally popular today, ready-made versions can still be bought at state-owned alcohol monopoly Systembolaget.

Anyone outside of Sweden keen to try making some can throw together a rough and ready version by combining a cup of porter, a cup of lager, and a cup of soda with four centilitres of gin and four centilitres of port. That’s enough to make a litre, so go easy on it!

5. Ris à la Malta

Admittedly, this Swedish Christmas dessert isn’t necessarily weird because of its contents, but it is weird in name. Many an innocent international will have heard the French-sounding “ris à la Malta” and presumed the dish is exactly what it claims to be: rice, Maltese style.

In fact, it’s zero percent Maltese, and rather hails from far closer to home. The Swedish name for the originally Danish dish is thought to be a phonetic corruption of the Danish name Risalamande.

Along with providing yet more proof of how much of a tough time the Swedes have understanding their southern neighbours, the name has served the purpose of confusing trusting foreigners for years.

In case you’re wondering, it’s basically rice pudding.

6. A smoked pig’s head

Though increasingly a dying tradition, it’s still possible to find a smoked pigs head at some Swedish Christmas meals, and the accompanying tradition of decorating it and even writing a cheery Christmas message on the snout says something about the dark side to Swedish humour.

Swedish meat industry organisation Svenskt kött says a pig’s head in the middle of the Julbord is an “amazing sight”, and while we’ll leave that for you to decide, it’s certainly likely to provoke an opinion, one way or another.

Oh, and if you’re really lucky, you may also be treated to jellied grisfötter – pig’s trotters – too.

Article written by Lee Roden in 2016 and updated in 2023.

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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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