Scrumptious Scandinavia
Lutefisk still thrives in Scandinavian-American communities, but modern Scandinavian cooking has adopted curries and other spices. And that's no lye! (Photo by Dave Fox)
Nordic Picnics
You'll find colorful markets throughout Scandinavia. Samples of picnic treats: Wasa flatbread, packaged meat and cheese, carmelized goat cheese, drinkable yogurt, freshly cooked or smoked fish, lingonberries, squeeze tubes of mustard and sandwich spreads (shrimp, caviar), and fresh rye bread.
In the south, fresh produce is grown locally. Long summer days ripen strawberries to a juicy red sweetness and markets burst with seasonal fruits and vegetables.
All of Scandinavia's capitals have great parks to picnic in. In Stockholm, Hötorget, just off the main pedestrian drag, is a fun place to shop. In the Östermalm neighborhood, the Saluhall is an old-time market with do-it-yourself and ready-made picnic supplies.
In Oslo, buy fresh-cooked shrimp from boats at the harbor in front of the city hall. Pack your picnic to the awe-inspring Vigeland sculpture park and dine with the statues.
For lots more information, check out our best-selling Rick Steves' Scandinavia guidebook — or join us on one of our free-spirited Scandinavia tours.
More than potatoes and pickled herring
By Sonja Groset
It's bland! It's all fish! It's all boiled! These are a few of the misconceptions about Scandinavian food. While "traditional" Scandinavian cuisine includes some dishes that are boiled and bland, modern Scandinavian cuisine offers more flavorful options.
Much like the US, Scandinavia today has a lot of influences from other cultures. Immigrants from Africa, Southern Europe and Middle Eastern countries have introduced an array of exotic flavors and spices. That, combined with Scandinavians traveling more throughout Europe and the rest of the world, has resulted in a culinary feast for the traveler.
Scandinavia has an abundance of fresh seafood — salmon, shrimp, cod, Baltic herring and more. Gravlax is raw salmon cured in a salt-sugar-dill mixture. It is sliced paper-thin and served as an appetizer atop open-faced sandwiches or as part of a smörgåsbord, often with a mustard-dill sauce.
Lamb, chicken, and pork are all popular too. Reindeer and venison are local specialties. For non meat-eaters, vegetarian options are easy to find.
In Stockholm, consider splurging for Sweden's best smörgåsbord at The Grand Hotel's dressy Varanda Restaurant. You can stuff yourself on traditional specialties — a dozen kinds of herring, salmon, reindeer, meatballs, lingonberries, and shrimp, followed by a fine table of cheeses and desserts — all with a great harbor view.
If your Scandinavian travels include an overnight cruise (Oslo-Copenhagen or Stockholm-Helsinki), prepare yourself for a feast fit for a Viking! Both cruises offer extensive buffets for passengers that include dozens of choices — a huge assortment of seafood and roasted meats, potatoes cooked a dozen different ways, colorful vegetables and salads, and other local specialties. You may want to wash it down with a local snaps — Akvavit or Vodka!
Denmark's 300-year-old tradition of open-faced sandwiches survives. Find a smørrebrød take-out shop during your visit and choose two or three that look good. You'll get them wrapped and ready for a park bench. With a cold drink, it makes a fine, quick, very Danish lunch. Tradition calls for three sandwich courses: herring first, then meat, then cheese. In downtown Copenhagen, you'll find handy local alternatives to Yankee fast food chains.
During your stay in Denmark, be sure to try their wonderful pastries. Bakeries have a golden pretzel sign hanging over the door or windows. The pastry we call a Danish is called wienerbrød ("Vienna Bread") in Denmark. It's named for the Viennese bakers who brought the art of pastry-making to Denmark, where the Danes say they perfected it. A mid-afternoon pastry break can rejuvenate your day of sightseeing.
Scandinavians love sweets. A meal is not complete without a little sweet treat and a cup of coffee. Bakeries (konditori) fill their window cases with all varieties of cakes, tarts, cookies, and pastries. The most popular ingredients are marzipan, almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate, and fresh berries. Many cakes are covered with entire layers of solid marzipan.
Cookies such as Norwegian krumkaker (delicate cone-shaped cookies), Danish butter cookies and Swedish cookies such as: choklad biskvier (almond cookies topped with a mound of chocolate butter cream and iced with dark chocolate), mazariner (fluted shells with almond paste), drömmar (butter "dream" cookies) and pepperkakor (crispy, thin ginger snaps). At Christmas time, Scandinavian families traditionally make seven kinds of cookies to serve guests over the holiday season. To find the neighborhood konditori and sample these treats, just look for a golden pretzel hanging above the door or windows.
Finally, there's lutefisk. Norway's gross traditional edible has become somewhat of a joke in the US. To preserve cod back in the days before refrigeration, the fish was air-dried and cured to preserve for later in the winter. When it was time to eat, lye was added to pull the salt out. The caustic solution was then rinsed out. What remained was a gelatinous mush. The fish was poached and served with boiled potatoes, white sauce, stewed peas, and fried bacon.
Today, fresh cod — no lye required — is available year-round. Tradition reigns supreme, however, and lutefisk lives on in Scandinavian-American communities in the US. Lutefisk is a Christmas tradition that helps those who left the "old country" connect with their homeland. In Scandinavia today travelers won't normally see lutefisk offered on the menu. At Christmas time however, at restaurants and in Scandinavian homes, lutefisk may well become a very real cultural experience in your travels!