Swedish Christmas Food, the Christmas buffet
Food is always such a wonderful and interesting subject!
In our 2021 Christmas video we didn’t eat all of the things I list below, but the list consists of what we traditionally eat every Christmas with my family here in Sweden. It can of course differ between different parts, areas and families. Also, almost the same food occurs at easter and midsummers eve too, the swedes doesn’t seem to have a lot of imagination...
Cold
Christmas ham – Julskinka
Ham, boiled and then glazed with some mustard mix and in some cases breadcrumbs
Pickled herring – Sill
Salted herring that are then pickled in vinegar, water, spices and sugar.
Cured salmon - Gravad lax
Raw salmon that are cured with sugar, salt, black pepper and dill
Smoked Salmon - Rökt lax
Smoked lamb - Rökt lamm
Homemade salami – Törkörv
A kind of simple sausage, very much like a salami. But maybe a bit drier and harder, Törkörv is dialectal and means dry sausage.
Sides
Boiled eggs - Kokta ägg
With shell taken off, split into halves and eaten with Kaviar, which is a bread spread with fish roe in it.
Swedish flatbread – Tunnbröd
Spiced with anise and fennel
Cheeses, both for dessert and the dinner - Ost
Charcuteries – Charkprodukter
Curdled cheese - Grynost
This one is a specialty for some areas in the middle of Sweden and Norway, you heat the milk, put in the rennet and let it stagnate, and get the cheese mass. Then you boil it for hours until its golden and tastes wonderful, also you add cinnamon rolls to it while it boils. Back in the days people around here boiled the cheese together with a “Sälgtjuka” or “Doftticka”, a mushroom that grows on sallow in old forests, they smell wonderful. But nowadays they are protected because they don’t exist in so many places any more, the Swedish forest companies have made sure their habitats are ruined and gone.
Liver pâté - Leverpastej
Fish Roe sauce – Romsås
Swedish Mustard and dill sauce – Hovmästarsås
Eaten with the Cured Salmon
Butter – Smör
Whey butter – Messmör
Another specialty, you boil the whey after making cheese for hours and hours until its brown and like a butter, tastes a bit like fudge.
Mustard – Senap
Salad – Sallad
A salad inspired by Christmas, often with oranges in it
Warm
Meatballs – Köttbullar
Swedish meatballs at its best, we also add allspice in the Christmas version
Prince sausage – Prinskorv
A small variant of the Vienna sausage
Rice pudding – Risgrynsgröt
This one is for breakfast mostly! Eaten with sugar/honey, cinnamon and butter. Some pour milk on top it all and some have it in a glass on the side.
Janssons temptation - Janssons frestelse
A casserole made with potatoes and anchovy
Ribs – Revbensspjäll
Beetroot salad – Rödbetssallad
Potatoes - Potatis
Brussels sprouts - Brysselkål
Sweet
Swedish Gingerbread cookies – Pepparkakor
In Sweden these cookies are not soft!
Christmas butterscotch – Knäck
The name Knäck means Crack, so watch your teeth!
Saffron buns – Lussebullar
Fluffy buns with saffron
Rice a la Malta - Ris a la Malta
Don’t know where the name comes from, but its cold rice pudding with added sugar, whipped crème, vanilla extract and bits of oranges. Delicious!
Chocolate – Choklad
We always have some light desserts too, like homemade ice cream, pannacotta and fruit salad
To drink
Malt soft drink (“Vintersaga” in some countries) – Julmust
The Must can be found in stores at Christmas and at Easter, not the rest of the year. A sweet and malty taste.
Water – Vatten
Christmas beer – Julöl
Usually, a bit darker kind of beer
Wine – Vin
Christmas goodie - Julmumma
A drink made from Julmust and beer
If you want to know more about the different foods its easy to search for it on the internet and read more. We will try to add some pictures later on.
Happy eating!