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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Piteå
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.
Traditional dish from Piteå, Norrbotten
Also known as: Palt, pitepalt med fläsk
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Pitepalt — Piteå, Sweden
Palt is the potato dumpling of northern Sweden, and pitepalt is its best-known version, named after the town of Piteå on the Norrbotten coast, considered the Swedish center of palt. The dough is made from raw grated potato and flour—wheat, barley, or a mix—and encloses a pork filling. The dumplings are boiled in salted water until they set.
The origin of palt is hard to trace. Some researchers suggest dumplings of this kind may even predate bread. In the north, barley was for a long time the main flour because it grew quickly, withstood the climate and yielded well; wheat flour was rare until large-scale production in the south and improved transport. Potato entered the recipe in the 18th century and became a staple ingredient without fully replacing flour.
Similar dumplings exist around the Baltic, in the British Isles and elsewhere. In southern Sweden the closest relative is kroppkaka, whose dough varies between raw and cooked potato depending on the region.
The most common pitepalt has a roasted pork filling; when the dumpling is not filled, the pork is served on the side. It is served hot, with melted butter and red bilberry jam, and many people have it with a glass of cold milk. In Piteå and parts of the north, palt is served in schools, restaurants and hospitals.
In 1995 Piteå established the Paltakademin, which promotes the dish and published a standard recipe. The town also holds an annual palt-eating contest.
Piteå , Norrbotten
Palt is named after the town, considered the Swedish center of the dish and home of the Paltakademin, founded in 1995.
Raw grated potato, wheat and/or barley flour, salt; pork filling (generally roasted pork or salted pork belly in cubes).
Hot, split open, drizzled with melted butter and accompanied by red bilberry jam, often with a glass of cold milk.
Everyday lunch and dinner in northern Sweden, including in schools and restaurants.
Your questions
From the town of Piteå in northern Sweden, considered the Swedish center of palt.
Pitepalt uses raw grated potato and flour and is typical of the north. Kroppkakor are associated with the south: in Öland raw potato predominates; in Småland, cooked potato is used.
With melted butter and a spoonful of red bilberry jam, often with a glass of cold milk.
Flavors of Sweden
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.
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).
