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Journey to Sweden Part 2: Stockholm supper club

December 20, 2011 11 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized

Stockholm: Sunday evening. 6pm. I enter the lobby of the building and get in the lift. After a few minutes I realise that there is no door on the lift and that I am not moving. Two passing ‘Sami’ women, their black diamond eyes flashing beneath the reindeer skins tell me: “This lift is only decorative. There is a working one around the corner.” On the tenth floor I ring on the bell of the correct door. Inside the two Sami women are there, they too are guests but somehow, magically, they have got there before me. They are nonchalantly taking off their shoes at the entrance.
I wish someone had warned me that Swedes take off their shoes to go inside a house. I see my bare big toe sticking out of the foot of my tights. So I’m warning you: always wear darned/new socks, long stockings or tights to Sweden.
Tonight’s supper club host is Linn Soderstrom. She came to The Underground Restaurant in April and now I am returning the favour.
Long after supper clubs and pop ups will stop being trendy, their long term future lies in tourism. After all, it was a trip to Cuba and visiting a ‘paladare’ that inspired me to start The Underground Restaurant in the first place. My ambition is to visit every supper club in the world, a goal which would combine all my various interests.

sour cherry icecream, linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess

Linn’s flat is modern. She works as a chef’s assistant during the week. I see her making sour cherry (from her mother’s garden) icecream. I love sour cherries. The Scandinavians seem to have more berries than anybody else: cloudberries, lingonberries, bilberries, which grow north of the 55th parallel, along with the blueberries, wild strawberries, elderberries and blackberries that we have too. In the bathroom there is a giant pink flamingo in the shower, balancing on one leg.

pickled herring linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess
Our first course is a small section of pickled herring on slices of potato with half a lightly boiled egg and onions. It’s so delicious I ask for seconds. Nobody else asks for seconds. 

People are chatting in English. But when I return from the loo, they are talking in Swedish. They are being very polite by spending the entire dinner party speaking in a foreign language for my benefit. Sometimes I drift off and don’t listen, but then I feel guilty. I must hang on every word. It costs them. I also find out that the ‘Sami’ aren’t Sami at all, they are Korean. Out of the eight guests, three of them just happen to be Swedish Korean. In the 60s and 70s many Swedish parents adopted Korean children. All of the guests are interested in food fortunately, even the normal ones on the end of the table who aren’t chefs or food publishers or who run tea shops. We spend most of the evening talking about pickling. I bring up the Euro and the Assange case. It’s noticeable that the Swedes talk about the Europeans as separate, they think of themselves as Scandinavians. Regarding Assange: the men think he was set up and the women think he’s an asshole.

linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess

This is a picture of Linn (left) and her sister. They are beautiful as you can see. Their parents are from Finland. Finns used to be badly treated in Sweden.

salmon, cabbage, rose hips, linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess
linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess, salmon, cabbage, rosehips

Next we ate salmon with cabbage and another kind of berry or perhaps it was crab apple (?). I don’t even like cabbage but this tasted great, again reprising that sweet/sour flavour combination.

linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess, cheese board

Cheese with crackers (Peter’s Yard style, excellent!) and home made fig chutney. All the tastes were clean and precise. Linn served christmas beer and wine matched to each course.

linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess, dinner

Finally the divine sour cherry icecream on gingerbread alongside coffee. The Swedish drink alot of coffee. The price of the meal including drink is 500 kroner.

linn Soderstrom, Swedish supper club hostess

Sunday: I wake up late, panicking. The hotel hasn’t given me an alarm call as requested. I dash down to breakfast, grab a couple of boiled eggs and some fruit and stagger to the central train station to catch the train to Gothenburg.
Passing the Swedish countryside, pine forests and industrial plants covered in graffitti streak past the window. I start reading Stieg Larsson’s best seller ‘The Girl with the dragon tattoo’.

gothenburg, sweden

Gothenburg: Fortunately the tourist office has booked me into a hotel above the station, First hotel G. I check in and meet Eva Lehmann from the Gothenburg tourist office. She will give me a foodie tour of the city.

gothenburg, sweden
Outside it is raining. Blue and yellow trams (Swedish colours) skid past. We rush into the indoor shopping centre.
gothenburg, sweden, chocolate shop Flickorna Kanold.
At Flickorna Kanold we taste the ‘Goteborg’ truffle, sprinkled with sea salt, a symbol of this 17th century seaport. 
gothenburg, sweden, cafe
Typical café.
gothenburg, sweden
In one street they use a string of jeans as christmas decorations.
At Floramor and Krukatos there are mossy wreaths and vintage Christmas decorations, gothenburg, sweden
At Floramor and Krukatos there are mossy wreaths and vintage Christmas decorations. 
candle stick holders, sweden

I buy these candle holders for 20 kroner each (£2) which I will stick into my Christmas wreath at home.

xmas wreath, sweden
pushchairs, sweden
 In Sweden the pushchairs are large and sturdy, like little tanks, probably to protect children from the cold. We head back out into the rain towards the Haga district, full of wooden houses, candlelit cafés and antique shops.
cinnamon bun, Café Husaren , gothenburg, sweden

Café Husaren , gothenburg, sweden
The Café Husaren where I have a giant cinnamon bun the size of my head!
vintage crockery, sweden

vintage crockery, sweden
 Antique shop with vintage Christmas plates….
gothenburg cafe, sweden

vintage fabrics, sweden

vintage fabrics, sweden
There is a large second hand shop nearby Myrorna where they sold vintage Christmas textiles as well as clothes and kitchenware. You can pay by card there too. Here is a site that tells you about other vintage shops in Gothenburg. Wish I’d had more time to explore.
central station, gothenburg, sweden

Back at the hotel, I indulge in a Swedish massage (£60 for an hour). Suitably relaxed I eat at a ‘Christmas buffet’ Wasa Allé. Book early to get in, they are very popular.

glogg, julbord, sweden

I’m given a ‘glogg’ (mulled red wine) accompanied by, what I believe is, an ‘amuse bouche’ of almonds and raisins, which I dutifully munch, not realising until the next day, when a Swedish person gives me a strange look, that you are supposed to put them in the glogg.

herring at a julbord, Sweden

At the buffet the chef Arets Julklapp  Mats Nordstrom explains that all of the ingredients at Wasa Allé are locally sourced and shows me the 12 different kinds of herring. I take a small portion of each one. At the table, my mind pops, my taste buds explode, my heart zings. I’m in love with herrings. I want to know all about herrings. How do they make them? Why are they so good? How come herrings here are so crap? I go back and get a second plate of 12 sorts of herrings. There are herrings with rosemary, with horseradish, with elderberries, with lime and chilli, with dill and mustard, fried and pickled, with beetroot. I can’t stop eating them. I think I’m turning into the weird kid from The Tin Drum or…perhaps I’m pregnant. Arets Mats explains that very fresh herrings are cured in salt then pickled in Attika vinegar which comes in two strengths 12% and 24%. It can be used to pickle, to kill weeds or to clean toilets.

attika

Unfortunately my herring gluttony means I can’t eat the rest of the buffet, the gravadlax, the smoked salmon, the poached salmon, the prawns, the eggs topped with roe, the Janssen’s temptation. Obviously I skip the reindeer, bear and other meat. I struggle to scoff a couple of puddings and the sweets to go with the coffee but I am defeated. I call a cab where I need to lie down. At the hotel I pass out fully clothed.

Part 3: More Gothenburg, Lucia Day and the Middagsklubben supper club due later.

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Comments

  1. TheFastestIndian

    December 20, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Excellent, excellent work MsML! I really want to go to Sweden, but the bf remains skeptical. I shall attempt persuasion or just go on my own.
    Had no idea about the Korean connection either…
    I sincerely hope that you have some sort of travel book in the offing too. Ixx

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    December 20, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    I actually tried the reindeer last year… Our first meal was in Kiruna, a traditional Sami meal and the only things that grow up there are berries, mushrooms, and reindeer. I figured it was one of the very special circumstances under which I would eat meat. It tasted really good, but I didn't have much in case I couldn't digest it (first meat in 16 years)

    Reply
  3. theundergroundrestaurant

    December 20, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    Thank you! That would be my dream to do a food and travel book…x

    Reply
  4. sabulous

    December 20, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    I love your descriptions! I've been a vegetarian for 16 years but I used to love reindeer!
    I have a little question though: was the chef's name Arets Julklapp? Because in Swedish "årets julklapp" means "Christmas present of the year"…

    Reply
  5. theundergroundrestaurant

    December 20, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    Gulp. Um, yes of course that's his name, it says so on the website.
    (Actually I can't find his card, how embarrassing.)

    Reply
  6. Lizzie

    December 21, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    It all looks lovely – great piece too, I had no idea about Koreans and Sweden.

    When I stayed at First Hotel I woke up with an arm covered in bed bug bites 🙁 hope the same didn't happen to you.

    Reply
  7. theundergroundrestaurant

    December 21, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    Lizzie: oh dear. I had bed bugs a couple of times, awful.

    My only problem with the First Hotel G is that you couldn't open the windows and I got really hot. They have dry heat in Sweden…electricity I think so I woke up with a crusty nose. Hate that.
    But then I'm a pulsatilla type..need a bit of fresh air at night.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    December 21, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    hi marmitelover.blogspot.com-ers merry xmas to you all – matty

    Reply
  9. Lemon

    December 22, 2011 at 1:22 am

    Thanks for sharing all these marvellous Swedish impressions, I always wanted to go thereto before Christmas, but never did so far, therefore it’s even greater seeing this post. And thanks for sharing your Stockholm supper club experience, sounds like a fun evening.

    Reply
  10. Lynn

    December 22, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    Thanks for sharing your trip to Sweden with us, you have an eye for detail and interest when it comes to taking pictures.They speak a thousand words.
    I concur with TheFastestindian that you should do some sort of travel book.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    January 10, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    Hi Kerstin, lovely post, I wish I could do Christmas all over again, will definitively try to spend it in Sweden now.
    Just an idea – those berries look a little bit like rose hips, if you are desperately wondering and staying awake all night.

    Greetings, Nicole

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
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