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SEMLA

Why Swedes will eat 221 tonnes of cream and six million buns today

Swedes are expected to gorge on 132 tonnes of almond paste and 211 tonnes of cream today, as the country consumes in total six million 'semlor' – the traditional bun eaten on Shrove Tuesday.

Published: 25 February 2020 08:14 CET
Why Swedes will eat 221 tonnes of cream and six million buns today
How many of these will you be eating today? Photo: Bertil Ericson/TT

Known as semla, fastlagsbulle, fettisdagsbulle or hetvägg, depending on where in Sweden you live, an estimated 40 million of the cardamom-flavoured buns get eaten between Christmas and Easter.

Bakery sales peak on Shrove Tuesday, the last day before the Lenten fast (and while Swedes these days are too secular to pay much attention to the Christian holiday, they know how to eat cakes and pastries).

In Sweden, this day is called Fat Tuesday, or Fettisdagen.

The scrumptious bun does not require a lot of ingredients, but if you break down the six million semlor (as they're known in plural) eaten on Fat Tuesday alone, you get, according to Swedish newswire TT's calculation: 132 tonnes of almond paste, 211 tonnes of cream, 2.6 tonnes of cardamom, 211 tonnes of flour, 42 tonnes of butter, 2.6 million eggs, 53 tonnes of sugar and 1 tonne of icing sugar.

Here are some of The Local's top articles about semlor. Scroll down for a vocabulary guide.

 

Will you be eating a semla today?

Quiz Maker – powered by Riddle

How to talk about semlor in Swedish

Hello, I would like a semla, please.

Hej, jag skulle vilja ha en semla, tack.


Would you like it with or without almond paste?

Ska det vara med eller utan mandelmassa?


How do you even eat this monstrosity? (Here's how)

Hur äter man ens den här monstrositeten?


That was yummy. May I have another one?

Det var gott. Kan jag få en till?


I'm really full now.

Nu är jag jättemätt.

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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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