We tried ALL the Swedish Foods, and boy were we SHOCKED!

Armed with our knowledge of Swedish food gathered from many lunches at IKEA, Alex and I set off on our own DIY food tour of Stockholm! We made a list of eleven traditional Swedish Foods to find and try, **other than meatballs**. We were shocked with what we discovered! 🥘🇸🇪

⭐️Locations & Food⭐️

1. Östermalm Market Food Hall (no food)
2. Scandic Sjöfartshotellet (hotel breakfast)
3. Hot Dog Vendor at Berzelii Park (korv)
4. Pascal Cafe (kanelbullar - cinnamon roll)
5. Kajsas Fisk in Hotorgshallen Market (soup & fried herring)
6. Café Tårtan (chocolate ball)
7. Crazy Horse (raggmunk - potato pancake)
8. Pelikan - (dumplings)
9. Panem - (salmon toast & princess cake)

[thatdudeinorange]

Americans that like Kaviar! Wow thats something I'd never expected to hear 😅

[Korligan]

Gravad lax is not basically smoked salmon. It is salmon that has been cured with sugar and salt in an oxygen-deprived environment. Today this is typically a plastic bag, but in olden days it would be placed in a container and buried. This results in autolysis where enzymes inherent to the meat will break down the tissue and also prevent bacterial growth. "Gravad" means "graved", or "dug", as in, put into a grave. Graving is an old Nordic tradition for preserving and preparing food. Some spice is usually added, making it do double duty as a marinade.

You comment that a lot of the food taste light, or subtle, or even bland. The US uses a lot of sweetener, salt, MSG, and fat in most cuisine to "improve" it, which really can dull one's sensitivity to natural flavors and textures. My wife, who is US born, was unused to whipped cream that had not had sweetener added to it, and when she first arrived, she felt it had no taste at all. After 15 years in Sweden whipped cream, apples, and even carrots taste sweet to her.

[freewill]

Americans handle their knife and fork the same way my 3 year old grandson does.😁

[Asa...S]

You having all these things, like the pancakes, the jam, the cinnamon bun, the chocolate ball, things that I as a Swede think are really sweet, and saying "this isn't that sweet" makes me wonder how extremely sweet everything must be in the US.
Like would I even find anything that was eatable..?

[rasmuswi]

Potato dumplings are quite regional in Sweden. For example, the ones called kroppkakor are strongly associated with Kalmar and Öland, so if you go to Öland you will easily find lots of restaurants that serve kroppkakor. It's a lot harder to find them in Stockholm resturants.

One thing I wish someone would have suggested you try is Wallenbergare. That's basically the upmarket version of meatballs, with patties made of minced veal, egg yolk and whipped cream. They are far more common in restaurants than mestballs.

[hakannorlings]

What you ate for the raggmunk wasn't bacon, it was fried pork. And if you want to make thin Swedish pancakes (10 pieces), the recipe is 3 eggs, 3 deciliters of flour and 6 deciliters of milk. A basic recipe is otherwise our emergency number on the phone 112 (like yours 911) 1 egg, 1 deciliter of flour and 2 deciliters of milk then you just multiply this (3, 3, 6). We melt a little butter in the frying pan and pour it into the batter, let it stand and swell for a little while, then we fry thin pancakes with a little butter in the frying pan. When you see that the pancake (topside) is drying, turn it over and fry the other side. The first one is almost always weird, but then they get good.
I usually eat my pancakes with maple syrup, queen jam or my grandmother's homemade cherry jam with whipped cream. Queen's jam is made with mixed berries - often raspberries and blueberries

[zekevarg]

The kaviar is smoked and salted cod roe. It's aioli on top of the fishsoup. There's no cheese in raggmunk. Raggmunk med fläsk is a very common dish at lunch restaurants, specially on tuesdays. Kroppkakor is from Småland/Öland region and not so common in the rest of the country. Gravad lax is cured salmon, not smoked. You have a very "american" way to use the utensils BTW. 😄

[deaodaggi]

Funny how you describe the heaviest and sweetest of Swedish foods, like pancake with whipped cream+ jam and princess cake, like "light and not overly sweet", it really makes you wonder how sweet and heavy typical American food is 😄
Nice video!

[dealerovski]

15:00 as a swede I eat strömming with mashed potatoes with melted butter and some lingon berries.

[patrikfogelstrom]

Loved your review. Being a Swede, I would have loved to taste all the great food you tasted. Don't listen to the "haters". You did a splendid and entertaining review. Looking forward to future vids. Cheers

[Zeelian]

Swedish "Kaviar" is made with cod roe, not salmon roe.

Gravad Lax is cured salmon, not smoked.

[Raddningspatrullen]

How could they serve the fried herring with no "lingonsylt" 😱

[Komona]

Knäckebröd is actually pronounced with a hard k sound in the beginning, and not just an n-sound. Regarding ä and ö, think of the vowel sound in the word "cat" or "bat", but pronounced a bit longer and more open. It’s like saying the "a" in "cat, " but without tightening your tongue or jaw as much. Then for ö, this sound doesn’t exist in standard English, but it’s similar to pronouncing the "i" in 'sir'" or "u" in 'fur'" when spoken with a British accent, though the lips are rounded.

Also, the reason the bacon is so thick is because it's not bacon, but rather cured pork. Very similar, yet different. Cured pork traditionally have much thicker slices than bacon. We also like to eat it together with a sauce of brown beans, syrup and vinegar, or onion sauce.

[jurgen]

Welcome to Sweden!
A good and lovely presentation of Swedish food and desert. 🎉😋🤗
Here is some more Swedish common food
1 Falukorv med stuvade makaroner, Falu sausage (A special brand)with stewed macaroni
2 Smörgåstårta there is several different tastes
Swedish sandwich cake, is a savory, layered cake made with bread and various fillings such as seafood, meats, vegetables, and creamy spreads.
3 Korvstroganoff med ris
sausage stroganoff with rice
4 Kokt potatis med fläsk och löksås, Boiled potatoes with pork and onion sauce
My favorite 😊
5 Janssons frestelse or Jansson's Temptation, is a classic Swedish casserole made from potatoes, onions, pickled sprats, and cream. This rich, creamy dish is baked until golden
6 Pyttipanna
Translating to "small pieces in a pan, " this hearty hash of potatoes, onions, and meat is a beloved comfort food. It's a brilliant way to use leftovers and is often crowned with a fried egg and beetroot
Have fun in your travels!
😋🌟🌹

[Vermiliontea]

The name of the 'Chocolate Boll' was originally something that could be translated as "dark bun", at least that was what the name meant. But it used a French derived word for dark/black, and basically, together with other semantic ambiguity and a bit of English, it could also be representative for let's say a 'derogative for black man's testicles'. So the name changed to Chocolate Boll for PC reasons when English became a more common language in Sweden. A TV comedy show, where a black American comes into a shop and asks what those are called, and the panic-paralyzed seller refuses to answer, may have been the final straw. 😂 It also used to be rolled in coconut flakes, not sugar.

[whisper]

Thank you for a nice video! If you got the chance, try some of Swedens aged hard cheese like Prästost, Svecia or Västerbottenost, the are really good and packed with intense flavour. A slice of aged Prästost on a piece of knäckebröd is as sweden as it gets

[peteringelsson]

Those pancakes are made in a factory so i wouldn't call them Swedish pancakes 😅, they are very spongey and not at all like traditional homemade pancakes just so you know😅.

[RaXXha]

In general swedish food like Kroppkakor, raggmunkar etc (collectively dubbed "husmanskost", basically "every mans food" or "home food") is very rich in fat and has been eaten for a long time in sweden since people needed the extra energy to work on the fields and to make it through the cold winter. 🙂

[UnderTheBlueBeanBush]

Östermalmshallen is in the part of town were the rich people live, with very much traditional swedish values. Hötorgshallen is more international. I like that they have different profiles so they don't really have to compete: they are both nice in their own way.
I feel sorry for you though that you couldn't come in the summer... Sweden is actually lovely in summertime...

[MartinJohansson-tg]

I really like this video, but why are you guessing about expressions and the contents of the food when any waiter could answer that? 🙂