semiswede

  One of the easiest, and most gratifying foraging finds in Sweden are wild rose hips, particularly the large rosa rugosa. From beaches to front yards the bright vermillion-red hips are generally ripe from August to October. There are masses of them to be found at Lomma Beach on the southwestern Swedish coast. In just […]

What do you do when you have picked 30 pounds (13.5kg) of plums at your friend’s place? You leave 15 pounds for her to deal with and take the rest home to begin on chutney, jam, cakes, jam, liqueur, jam, and then you consider force feeding the rest to your family. Anything to use them up fast.

It’s kräftskiva (crawfish time) in Sweden and after celebrating at home with our family I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the shells. There is such a minimal amount of meat in those little crawfish bodies and such a vast amount of flavor in the shells that it seems a waste to just bin them.

In case you haven’t heard, crawfish are a big deal in Sweden, but only in August. There is a long-standing tradition of cracking open these bright red crustaceans at parties where paper crawfish decorations, goofy party hats, and smiling moons decorate festive outdoor parties. Masses of crawfish and aquavit (snaps) are consumed between the first Wednesday in August and the […]