Christmas Celebrations
The Christmas feast is held at lunchtime on the 24th, on Julafton (Christmas Eve). Santa normally delivers the presents after lunch, then at 3pm is the traditional hour of Disney cartoons on TV. Seeing as almost everyone I know left town to visit relatives in other parts of the country, I spent the day lazily at home, reading, watching some teev (not much of the disney), cooked myself a lamb roast (not an aussie tradition, just something I wanted to do), and watched the snowstorm outside. It's now up to knee height.
Christmas Day is time to recover, and gather up the energy to go out and party. A few of us went out to Cleo nightclub (where else?), where it was absolutely packed. What can I say about Cleo? It is the main meatmarket in town, so the attempts at getting the goods are frequent and very obvious. The girls are very much in control. Unfortunately one of the guys I was with had a technique that involved drunkenly lurching into people, hoping that with enough collisions there would be some success. Music-wise, it is middle of the road Europop. Shlager is the term for the Eurovision Song Contest style of music, which is big here, and there was heaps of it on the dance floor. "Oh Mickey You're so fine hey Mickey" is not any better in Swedish. Fortunately (?) there was no ABBA medley, but they take Europe's The Final Countdown very, very seriously here. There is no irony attached to the song, and when it comes on it is time for even the most tatooted biker types to jump onto the dancefloor and start the air guitar. So be warned: keep tounge firmly out of cheek if discussing this song.
After the club, where it took almost 30mins of queuing just to get our jackets back, I spent most of Boxing day asleep, getting up at 2:30, just in time to eat breakfast while the sun went down, and then get ready to go to Marta-Lena's family for a christmas dinner, which was great. l haven't eaten a lot of traditional Swedish food, as most of the restaurants in town serve asian influenced cuisine or pizza and kebabs, but on the occasions friends have cooked for me the homestyle food has been great. We had bits of julbord, and then a roast moose dish that was superb: the frozen slab of meat is put in the oven at about 75oC overnight for slow cooking , then it is marinaded in water with salt and spices. Fantastic. The strangest thing though was 'coffee cheese', a hard cheese that was put in the coffee. Hmm, I think a separation of curds and coffee would have worked just as well.
What is so good about Christmas here in Sweden is that it has a much more traditional feel than back home, I guess partly because we reference the traditions (snow, pine trees, roasts, fireplaces) but don't actually experience them. And the traditions here go back a long way, whereas we have a bit of a modern blend. It also seems to be less commercial, with Christmas ads and goods in the shops not being so noticeable to me until the end of Nov, which was the first week of Advent. But that could be just my lack of exposure to shops, not understanding the TV, and the small town effect.
Our departmental christmas lunch was like a classic tableau, sitting at a table with candles in the window, snow falling in the forest outside covering the green trees and red houses. Fantastic stuff.
The one thing defeated me was the kalvsylta - the brown stuff above the fork. It's a kind of pressed, jellyfied meatloaf made from scraps. It didn't even look like meat, and definitely didn't feel like it. Admittedly, that wasn't my first time with unknown processed meat product: 'Kebab' meat here is often a pressed meat of some sort, rather than the slabs of fillets we get on a gyros back home. When I asked one time what meat it was all I got was a shrug, an "I dont know", and then "it's not pork" as an answer.
Julmust is a great soft-drink, kinda like chinotto or portello. It is sold only at Christmas time, though it gets rebottled and also flogged as an easter Påskmust a few months later. Apparently Sweden is unique in that Coke sales plummet over Christmas because of julmust. The first ads I've seen for Coke on TV here have been over Christmas, pushing a really tacky "Santa is coming so it's time to drink Coke" angle, in an attempt to prevent the defection. Apparently it doesn't work, so this year they have actually brought out thier own brand of julmust. People I know are a bit sceptical of it though.
Glögg is another christmas tradition, basically mulled wine, cooked with spices, heated and served with almonds and sultanas. The photo here is of a white wine based glögg, in its special heated serving dish. Of course, harder spirits can also be added to glögg, you just have to be quick to drink it before the heat evaporates all the alcohol. There is also julöl, or Christmas beer, which is a dark beer and pretty good too.
One tradition I like, and I don't think it is limited to Christmas, is of singing a toast. Snapps are usually served with a fish course, but even without, when it comes to the toast there is usually a song to be sung. Most recently have been christmas songs. Also, Sweden is probably one of the few countries where they don't sing the usual Happy Birthday song - they have their own. I thought the tune we use has become basically universal.
Paste. Not specifically a Christmas food, but to the Swedes it's a whole separate food group, defined as anything that that can be processed into a tube or tubs. Most are variations of fish, prawns, or ham mixed with cheese or mustard or dill or something. A squeeze from a tube on some crackerbread, maybe with a slice of cheese, can be a typical lunch.
Christmas Day is time to recover, and gather up the energy to go out and party. A few of us went out to Cleo nightclub (where else?), where it was absolutely packed. What can I say about Cleo? It is the main meatmarket in town, so the attempts at getting the goods are frequent and very obvious. The girls are very much in control. Unfortunately one of the guys I was with had a technique that involved drunkenly lurching into people, hoping that with enough collisions there would be some success. Music-wise, it is middle of the road Europop. Shlager is the term for the Eurovision Song Contest style of music, which is big here, and there was heaps of it on the dance floor. "Oh Mickey You're so fine hey Mickey" is not any better in Swedish. Fortunately (?) there was no ABBA medley, but they take Europe's The Final Countdown very, very seriously here. There is no irony attached to the song, and when it comes on it is time for even the most tatooted biker types to jump onto the dancefloor and start the air guitar. So be warned: keep tounge firmly out of cheek if discussing this song.
Me, Mangel, and Hasse
After the club, where it took almost 30mins of queuing just to get our jackets back, I spent most of Boxing day asleep, getting up at 2:30, just in time to eat breakfast while the sun went down, and then get ready to go to Marta-Lena's family for a christmas dinner, which was great. l haven't eaten a lot of traditional Swedish food, as most of the restaurants in town serve asian influenced cuisine or pizza and kebabs, but on the occasions friends have cooked for me the homestyle food has been great. We had bits of julbord, and then a roast moose dish that was superb: the frozen slab of meat is put in the oven at about 75oC overnight for slow cooking , then it is marinaded in water with salt and spices. Fantastic. The strangest thing though was 'coffee cheese', a hard cheese that was put in the coffee. Hmm, I think a separation of curds and coffee would have worked just as well.
What is so good about Christmas here in Sweden is that it has a much more traditional feel than back home, I guess partly because we reference the traditions (snow, pine trees, roasts, fireplaces) but don't actually experience them. And the traditions here go back a long way, whereas we have a bit of a modern blend. It also seems to be less commercial, with Christmas ads and goods in the shops not being so noticeable to me until the end of Nov, which was the first week of Advent. But that could be just my lack of exposure to shops, not understanding the TV, and the small town effect.
Our departmental christmas lunch was like a classic tableau, sitting at a table with candles in the window, snow falling in the forest outside covering the green trees and red houses. Fantastic stuff.
Although Sweden gave us the smörgåsbord, it didn’t give us the julbord "christmas table", which is a shame as there's some great stuff on it. It's mostly based on cold meats – pickled herring (inlagd sill) various forms of smoked and marinated salmon (lax), a range of breads (thin, risen, and cracker), and some hot dishes like meatballs, frankfurters, Janssons temptation (scalloped potates baked with herring and cream), and usually a roast ham.
The one thing defeated me was the kalvsylta - the brown stuff above the fork. It's a kind of pressed, jellyfied meatloaf made from scraps. It didn't even look like meat, and definitely didn't feel like it. Admittedly, that wasn't my first time with unknown processed meat product: 'Kebab' meat here is often a pressed meat of some sort, rather than the slabs of fillets we get on a gyros back home. When I asked one time what meat it was all I got was a shrug, an "I dont know", and then "it's not pork" as an answer.
Julmust is a great soft-drink, kinda like chinotto or portello. It is sold only at Christmas time, though it gets rebottled and also flogged as an easter Påskmust a few months later. Apparently Sweden is unique in that Coke sales plummet over Christmas because of julmust. The first ads I've seen for Coke on TV here have been over Christmas, pushing a really tacky "Santa is coming so it's time to drink Coke" angle, in an attempt to prevent the defection. Apparently it doesn't work, so this year they have actually brought out thier own brand of julmust. People I know are a bit sceptical of it though.
Glögg is another christmas tradition, basically mulled wine, cooked with spices, heated and served with almonds and sultanas. The photo here is of a white wine based glögg, in its special heated serving dish. Of course, harder spirits can also be added to glögg, you just have to be quick to drink it before the heat evaporates all the alcohol. There is also julöl, or Christmas beer, which is a dark beer and pretty good too.
One tradition I like, and I don't think it is limited to Christmas, is of singing a toast. Snapps are usually served with a fish course, but even without, when it comes to the toast there is usually a song to be sung. Most recently have been christmas songs. Also, Sweden is probably one of the few countries where they don't sing the usual Happy Birthday song - they have their own. I thought the tune we use has become basically universal.
Paste. Not specifically a Christmas food, but to the Swedes it's a whole separate food group, defined as anything that that can be processed into a tube or tubs. Most are variations of fish, prawns, or ham mixed with cheese or mustard or dill or something. A squeeze from a tube on some crackerbread, maybe with a slice of cheese, can be a typical lunch.
posted by Mark Terner at
9:48 PM
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