What do people eat in Sweden?
Swedes eat an open sandwich for breakfast, a hot lunch around noon and dinner by 18:00, with a coffee and a bun, called fika, in between. Meatballs, herring, salmon and potatoes are the classics.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
Breakfast is early, often around 7:00. The usual plate is knäckebröd, a crispbread, or rye bread with butter, cheese and cucumber, plus filmjölk, a soured milk, with muesli. Many add a boiled egg topped with Kalles kaviar, a smoked cod roe spread from a tube.
Lunch
Lunch is a hot meal, eaten between 11:30 and 13:00. Restaurants serve dagens lunch, a set dish of the day that often comes with salad, bread and coffee. On Thursdays many still eat ärtsoppa, yellow pea soup with pork, about 350 kcal a bowl, followed by thin pancakes with jam and cream.
Dinner
Dinner is around 17:00 to 18:00. Home cooking, called husmanskost, means köttbullar with boiled potatoes, cream sauce and lingonberry jam, five meatballs being about 300 kcal, or salmon, falukorv sausage or fish gratin. Friday night is fredagsmys, a cosy evening at home, often with tacos or crisps.
Starters
Swedes rarely eat a starter on a weekday. At a smörgåsbord, and at Christmas and Midsummer, the meal opens with pickled herring, gravlax (cured salmon with a dill and mustard sauce) and eggs, then moves on to warm dishes. In August friends meet for kräftskiva, a crayfish party with paper hats and songs.
Desserts
Sweet things come mostly with coffee. The semla, a cardamom bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream, is eaten around Shrove Tuesday. Prinsesstårta is a dome of sponge, cream and green marzipan, and 4 October is cinnamon bun day, kanelbullens dag.
Drinks
Coffee is the main drink, black or with milk, several times a day, and Sweden is among the biggest coffee drinkers per person in the world. Many adults drink a glass of milk with lunch. Drinks over 3.5% are sold only at Systembolaget, the state shop, and at Christmas people drink glögg and julmust, a spiced soft drink.
Street food
The classic street snack is korv med mos, a sausage with mashed potato from a korvkiosk. Go further with tunnbrödsrulle, thin flatbread rolled around sausage, mash and shrimp salad. Kebab and pizza places are everywhere too, and kebab pizza is a Swedish favourite.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Surströmming, Baltic herring fermented in a can, is opened outdoors because of the smell, and the season starts in late August. Jam with meat is normal, so lingonberries go with meatballs. Pea soup on Thursday, cod roe from a tube and fika at 10:00 and 15:00 at work all feel ordinary to Swedes.