Day 473: Inherent Swedish Ability

This is a piece of knäckebröd. For anyone who doesn't already know, it's basically a cracker made from rye or wheat, tastes approximately like cardboard and is so hard you could probably stack a few together and murder some people. Swedish people eat them so much there is an aisle in the supermarket with different kinds of what is essentially the same thing. Kids at schools eat them at snack time. In the staffrooms of schools there is knäckebröd. On the tables in the dining halls of places of work there is knäckebröd. On the bread table at a buffet there is knäckebröd. Right now while I am typing, my Swedish boyfriend is buttering a piece of knäckebröd. I can hear it from next door because they're that fucking hard.

I would like to draw your attention to the picture above. I buttered that piece of knäckebröd and I have to say I did a lousy job. The surface has a pillowed texture and the butter just goes in the crevices. My attempts to put the knife in the gap and redistribute the butter have just meant the butter is piled in a similar quantity in an adjacent crevice. Now, I've lived here for 473 days so I like to think I've learned a little bit about Swedish life, but I don't think I will ever learn how to butter a piece of knäckebröd. Let's compare with my boyfriend's knäckebröd:

Look at that. It's a fucking piece of art.

While the butter is in the crevices, which is unavoidable, unlike my piece the butter is in pretty much all the crevices, rather than just one measly side. Also, it took me fucking ages to "spread" the butter, so mine is half melted. My boyfriend's piece has unmelted butter, effortlessly spread on with a single sweep.

Now, I'm not much of a scientist but I'm willing to state that this is evidence enough for Swedish people having an innate ability to prepare knäckebröd. Even with lots of practise I'm just not as good as a Swede when it comes to buttering. Hats off to you guys.

Day 468: How Sweet!

I've come to discuss this.

These are sweets. You can buy them in England. They're called mushrooms and when I was a kid I used to pretend I was Alice in Wonderland and that one side would make me tall and the other side would make me small.

But when I was a kid, the pink side was strawberry flavour and the white side had no flavour but sugar. These mushrooms here are BLACK LIKE THE NIGHT and it can only mean one thing in this country. Liquorice.

I'm not Liquorice's greatest fan. I'll admit to buying the occasional packet of Liquorice Allsorts, but not for the liquorice. The best sweets in the bag are the coconut one and the little pink or blue round one which have arguably the greatest sugar to liquorice ratio of all the choices.

That's right Bertie, I'll eat your face and feet.

Nevertheless these weird liquorice salty mushrooms are actually quite nice...I feel a bit wrong for having admitted that in a public forum. A while back Pretzel-Flipz used to be on sale in England, but only for a short time as the public just COULDN'T HANDLE chocolate (a sweet) with pretzels (salty) and I'm still and forever a bit disappointed in the British public for their failure to assimilate Pretzel Flipz into their hearts. Middle class people are coming around to the idea of salty/sweet now thanks to the advent of Salted Caramel (which coincidentally I hate.)

Here in Sweden once a sweet has emerged it's simply not good enough to only have one version. Let's examine this theory. We can start with the mushrooms. In addition to the salty ones above there are also the regular "strawberry" (according to the manufacturer's website, who knew?!) ones, and some "kola" ones (this doesn't mean Cola. It means Caramel)

Alright, thats just 3 types. But then, for those people who only like the white side of the mushroom (god knows why) there are sockerbitar.

Meanwhile those people who like the pink side of the mushroom can go for the Strawberry sockerbit. But I should probably warn you that eating only one of the two colours can cause you to be either excessively large or excessively small, such that doors could become unsurmountable obstacles.

And for those people who like the texture of mushrooms and sockarbitar but would like to branch out and try a different shape, there are foam bananas, or as I shall now refer to them, scum bananas since they are SKUMBANAN in Swedish. For the love of God, write to Ikea now and petition for a wardrobe or whatever called SKUMBANAN.

Don't tell anyone, but this is actually a picture of sugar free foam bananas

But what if you eat your own body weight in skumbanan and then you don't know how you can continue on from that point? Have no fear, chocolate scum banana is here (Or chocolate Mushroom if you haven't had your 5-a-day):

And if all that chocolate is getting a bit too rich on the palate, you can cleanse with a nice, refreshing, sour scum banana.

And when the sugar gets just a bit too sugary, it's back to salt. Salt bananas, that is!

Basically this post could go on forever with variants of the same damn thing, so I'll leave you with this gem I found while searching Google Sweden for all these sweets. And don't tell your excellent, Swedish dentist.

Day 456: Poo bus

I just read this...

I'm sure my British readers are thinking "Wow, what an ecological milestone, well done!"
All I can think is...

Where the fuck has England been for the last few years? 75% of all buses in Stockholm are run on the same biogas as that one "miraculous" poo bus. According to the website of the transport organisation their aim is to have at least 95% fossil-fuel-free forms of transport in greater Stockholm and I'm sure there are Stockholmers who think even that's not good enough! And it's not just Stockholm, in Uppsala, too, the aim is to be free from petrol by 2020. I haven't done the research on the other counties in Sweden but I'm sure that they have high targets for the same thing.

Perhaps England is doing something else with all its sewage? Like making fertiliser or somesuch? I know there are lots of new electric hybrid buses driving around in London now, why not go one step further and have biogas hybrid? Take a quick look at Transport for London's climate targets, they're suggesting around 50% reduction in emissions by 2025. Okay, there are ten times as many people there, but that means ten times the sewage, right? And ten times the taxpayers money that could go on the upgrades? And ten times the amount of people using the transport? I don't know, I'm not an economist. But it still feels like Sweden is doing something right here.

Day 444: Another guide to candles

Last week I painstakingly researched candles for my post illuminating (ha. see what I did there?) how obsessed Sweden is with the things. At the bottom I sarcastically added that people should tell me about all the candles I IGNORANTLY missed out.

Well, apparently I missed a few.

So before I get hunted down by the Swedish population and slapped to death with herrings, or stoned  with meatballs, or locked in an IKEA and forced to make flatpacks until my fingers fall off and my brain bleeds, here are a few more candles!

PRISMALJUS (prism-shaped candle)

Why have regular when you can have angular?

    GILLELJUS (block candle)

IT'S JUST A FRIKKIN' BLOCKLJUS!

KUPELJUS (fat pillar candle)

For when a regular pillar candle leaves you unsatisfied

GRAVLJUS (grave candle)

For candles in the wind

ALTARLJUS (altar candle)

Priests like them long and long
lasting

ANTIKLJUS (olden-day candle)

A long, rounded candle for those who like it olden-day style

KALENDERLJUS (calendar candle)

If you can't figure out what this is for then you don't deserve to know

TÅRTLJUS (cake candle)

Blow them real good!

ANDAKTSLJUS (church candle)

Because there aren't already enough candles for the church

 DOPLJUS (baptism candle)

Aka. burn your newborn's face - aw how lovely!

LAMPETT (mirror sconce)

SCONCE an English word none of us use enough.

JULGRANSLJUS (christmas tree candle)

Nothing says Christmas like waking up to a burnt down house

SNÖLYKTA (snow lantern)

no house? no money? no candles? Swedes find a way (candles are IMPORTANT)

I've officially had enough of candles now. Far too much of my precious brain space is taken up with knowing candle names in Swedish. But I will say this: the Swedish company Liljeholmens has so fucking many candles I could write about 50 blog posts. If you REALLY NEED MORE CANDLES you bunch of weirdos, ask them.

http://www.liljeholmens.se/

Day 438: Allhelgona

  

This evening I've been hanging around in a graveyard.

Halloween is relatively new to Sweden, kids dress up and ask for sweets because they're copying the Americans. The traditional festival is All Hallows held over the first weekend in November. With the exception of the booze shop being closed (so you have to stock up for those Halloween parties in advance, kids) you wouldn't notice much difference unless you took a trip to the graveyards. 

Swedes (like a few other nationalities around the world) honour their dead on All Hallows. They visit the graves of their families and lay candles and a fir wreath by their tombstone. In contrast to English cemeteries, which have a motley assortment of tended and untended graves, weeds, overgrown patches, empty patches and god only knows what else, Swedish cemeteries are neatly and carefully tended, the one I was in had Zen-garden style raked gravel over each plot.

People sometimes travel far to honour their dead, my boyfriend's parents drove to the other side of the country to visit his mother's home town and the graves of his grandparents. There are a lot of people planting, tidying and lighting candles. Even though it was raining like mad yesterday many of the lanterns are still going and the graveyards are beautiful to see with all the little lights.

Today's best find was probably the grave of the master girdlemaker...

Day 431: A guide to candles

Woah. Woah. Woah,

Why the fuck do we need a guide to candles?

They're wax, have a wick, you light them on fire. Sometimes, if you're fancy, they have a scent. But that's it. We don't need a blog post about that, thanks.

Well.

Sorry, but you do. This is SWEDEN. And the clocks went back today. That means it gets dark at 3pm and Swedish people break out the candles, big ones, little ones, round ones, tall ones, tealight-y ones, smelly ones...you get the idea. If you suffer from clinical depression like a colleague of mine, Swedish people will prescribe candles to you as an antidote to winter blues, because hey, who doesn't FUCKING LOVE CANDLES IN 70 DIFFERENT SHAPES AND SIZES!!!

I took a ridiculously long time researching these, as I didn't have a clue what they were all called in English and was reminded along the way of that saying about the inuit having 100 words for snow. Credits to Åhlens and Clas Ohlsson for stocking what can only be described as a fucktonne of candles.

BLOCKLJUS (pillar candle)

I chose this particular one because it's called PRICK

ADVENTLJUS (advent candles)

To count down each week in December

VÄRMELJUS (tea lights)

I guess if you light enough of them they'll create warmth?

BATTERIDRIVNA VÄRMELJUS (electric tealight)

For the fire conscious Swede

 

MARSCHALL (outdoor candles)

These are outside shops so people don't bump into them, or something...

KRONLJUS (straight candles)

Literally "crown candles" but not the go-to choice for putting on your head

KANALLJUS (straight candles)

THESE are the go-to choice when you want candles on your head

DOFTLJUS (scented candles)

The smelly Swede's choice

LJUSLYKTA (candle holder for a tealight)

The name meaning "votive" or given as an offering (in church)

LJUSSTAKE (candelabra)

Literally "LIGHT STAKE". Yeah, take that, vampires.

LJUSFAT (candle tray)

When a regular tray just won't cut it.

TÄRNLJUS (handmaiden's candle)

For leading processions in dark places

LYKTA (lantern)

A standard lantern

STALLYKTA (lantern)

A, er, standard lantern...

TOMTELYKTA (Santa's lantern)

A standard lantern, such that Santa might use

STORMLYKTA (storm lantern)

A standard lantern to keep the wind away from the candle

HÄNGLYKTA (hanging lantern)

A standard lantern that has a hook for hanging

If I've missed a candle, please do inform me of my IGNORANCE.