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Traditional food · Sweden
Sweet breads from fika, fermented fish from the north, celebration cakes and potato dumplings: Sweden’s food changes between Skåne, the Baltic islands and the Norrland coast.
In the photo: Gamla Stan, Estocolmo
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
The cuisine
Swedish cuisine was born in a long country with long winters, where preserving food was a necessity. Salting, smoking, drying and fermenting fish and meat ensured food for the cold months, and many traditional recipes come from those techniques. At the same time, trade across the Baltic brought spices like saffron, cinnamon and cardamom, which became part of celebration sweets.
In the north, along the Gulf of Bothnia coast, Baltic herring fermented as surströmming gained its own season at the end of summer, and palt, a potato dumpling stuffed with pork, became everyday food, with Piteå as the reference town. In the south and east, the same dumpling idea appears in the kroppkakor of Öland and Småland.
Each region has its symbols. Skåne is the land of spettkaka, a cake baked layer by layer on a spit that turns before the fire. Gotland serves saffron pancake with salmbär jam. Småland has ostkaka, made from curdled milk, and Gränna, on the shore of Lake Vättern, has polkagris, the peppermint-striped candy. In Stockholm, a disappeared hotel gave its name to Biff Rydberg.
Other recipes belong to the whole country: meatballs with lingonberry jam, dill-cured salmon, the semla for Fat Tuesday, the kanelbulle of fika and the green princess cake. Many of them have their own days on the calendar, like Kanelbullens dag.
13 flavors
Raw salmon fillet cured in a mixture of salt, sugar and dill, sliced very thin and served with hovmästarsås, a sweet mustard-and-dill sauce. The name means “buried salmon” and recalls the old method of preserving the fish under the ground.
Sweet yeast bread flavored with cardamom, rolled with butter, sugar and cinnamon, and topped with pearl sugar. It is the pastry most associated with fika, the coffee break, and even has its own day in the Swedish calendar, Kanelbullens dag, on October 4.
Small meatballs made with ground meat, fried in butter and served with cream sauce, potatoes, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber. They are Sweden’s best-known home dish, with the first printed recipe appearing in a 1755 cookbook.
Dome-shaped cake with layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam, vanilla cream, and lots of whipped cream, covered by a green marzipan sheet and decorated with a pink marzipan rose. The name recalls the three princess daughters of Prince Carl, pupils of Jenny Åkerström, the recipe’s author.
Wheat bread with cardamom, cut open at the top, filled with almond paste and whipped cream and topped with the cut-off lid dusted with sugar. It’s the sweet eaten on fettisdagen, the Fat Tuesday, and descends from the hetvägg, bread eaten soaked in warm milk.
Tall, hollow, lace-like cake made from eggs, sugar and potato starch, poured little by little onto a rotating spit in front of heat, layer by layer. Decorated with white or pink icing, it is a celebratory sweet from Skåne, and the name Skånsk spettkaka is protected by the European Union.
Cubes of beef tenderloin, potato and onion browned separately and served side by side, with a raw egg yolk in the center and mustard or mustard cream. Named after the Hotel Rydberg, which operated on Gustav Adolfs torg in Stockholm, where the dish is said to have originated.
Baked saffron rice pudding tart with eggs, cream and almonds, yellow in color, served warm or cold with salmbär jam and whipped cream. Despite the name “pancake,” it’s baked in a pan. It is the sweet most associated with the island of Gotland.
A white stick candy with red spiral stripes and peppermint flavor, pulled and twisted by hand. It originated in Gränna, on the shore of Lake Vättern, where the widow Amalia Eriksson obtained a license to make it in 1859, and the town remains the center of its production.
Baked dessert made from curdled milk using rennet, enriched with eggs, cream, sugar and almonds, with a moist, granular texture. Served warm with jam and whipped cream, it is the festival specialty most associated with the Småland region, with Swedish records dating back to the 16th century.
Large potato dough dumplings filled with bacon or pork and onion, cooked in water and served with melted butter and red bilberry jam. The Öland version, gray and made with raw potato, and the Småland version, lighter and made with cooked potato, are the best known.
Boiled dumpling made from raw grated potato and wheat or barley flour, filled with pork, served with butter and red bilberry jam. It’s an everyday food in northern Sweden, and the name comes from the town of Piteå, considered the Swedish center of palt.
Baltic herring, lightly salted and fermented, canned in summer; strong-smelling with a salty, acidic taste. It’s eaten on the thin flatbread tunnbröd with potato, red onion and sour cream, in a communal meal at the end of summer. The tradition links the dish to the Norrland coast and the island of Ulvön in the High Coast (Höga Kusten).
Suggest a traditional dish, sweet or drink of Sweden that is not here. We check the sources before adding it.
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Your questions
There isn’t just one. Meatballs, köttbullar, are the best known abroad, but each region has its specialties, like spettkaka in Skåne, the saffron pancake in Gotland and palt in the north.
It’s the coffee break with something sweet, a daily custom in Sweden. The kanelbulle, a cinnamon sweet bun, is the most traditional accompaniment.
No. The north has recipes tied to Baltic fish and to potatoes, like surströmming and palt; the south and the islands have their own sweets and dishes, like spettkaka and kroppkakor.
Gränna’s polkagris is a traditional souvenir and keeps well. In Skåne, spettkaka is sold whole or in pieces, packaged.
