Milk that has gone off.
Filmjölk
Have you ever reached for a carton to pour some milk in your coffee only to discover that your lovely beverage has turned lumpy and smells off? Chances are that you have accidentally encountered filmjölk, the Swedish speciality sour milk. The dairy counter in the supermarket is full of dairy products that may overwhelm someone who just wants some plain milk.
This could be one to try though. It’s less thick than yoghurt and is basically just cultured milk. The flavour is fresh and slightly acidic. Technically it is off, and it contains bacteria that is a strain of streptococcus. None of this sounds good but I assure you it is. Swedes typically eat filmjölk for breakfast or as a snack.
Fish that has gone off.
Surströmming
Speaking of food that has gone off. This is the king of rotten food. The Baltic herring is caught in early summer and is then left to ferment in its own bacteria to the point that hydrogen sulphide is formed. It is then canned, where a secondary fermentation takes place. Until the late 1990s the Swedish Food Agency decided when the rotten fish could be consumed. In order to ensure that it was properly fermented the fish-eating premiere normally took place on a set date in the third week of August. This is no longer a statute but the tradition still stands.
The production and consumption is a local tradition in Norrland, but you can normally find cans in the rest of Sweden as well for those who dare. However, last year it was nowhere to be found in many shops. A lack of fish in the Baltic has led to a shortage and a potential black market run by those who got hold of some tins.
The most prominent feature of this dish is undoubtedly its pungent smell. You cannot open a can indoors if you want to continue living in the house. The smell will stick to everything for all eternity. So if you have an enemy a good revenge might be to pour some surströmming through their letterbox when they’re away.
Local speciality - skrovmål calzone.
Pizza salad
In most parts of the world a pizza is just consumed as is but in Sweden it comes with salad. It is said that one of the first pizza chefs in Sweden, Guiseppe Sperandio served shredded white cabbage in a vinaigrette at his Stockholm restaurant Pizzeria Piazza Opera in the 1970s. This was in order to offer a cheap salad. It then spread to every local pizzeria throughout the country and can be found everywhere, most of the time included in the price.
Although the wood-fired artisanal pizzerias that have popped up in recent years wouldn’t dream of serving pizza salad or the other Swedish crime against pizza – the skrovmål calzone. An entire burger and chips meal baked into a pizza. Yeeuch!
An abundance of cheese in tubes.
Cheese in tubes
You may also have noticed an inordinate number of tubes at the supermarket. Swedes have a thing for spreadable cheese (mjukost). It comes in all imaginable flavours such as prawn, blue cheese, smoked reindeer and crayfish. The Norwegian Olav Kavli invented this cheese in the 1920s and its main feature is that it has an exceptionally long shelf life. The plain spreadable cheese is one of the blandest things one could eat, but sometimes that's exactly what you want.
White balls in white sauce.
Fiskbullar
Many a child have been served white balls in white sauce at the school canteen. These are concoctions made of mushed up fish with added potato starch formed into a ball. It swims in a white sauce that may contain dill if you are lucky. These can also be found at the supermarket, but the question is why anyone, who isn’t forced to by the education system, would eat them.