Royal Palace sprint in Stockholm
The snow has finally melted but they brought it back for the event. We swedes just can’t get enough of snow. Royal Palace sprint in Stockholm today. Part of the world cup and we get this prime view from our office window in Old town. Not bad?
Sweden is trying to brand itself as a “the new culinary nation.” Thinking about classic gastronomical countries like France and Italy, it may seem a bit far-fetched to think that Sweden will ever be able to compete on the global food scene.
But looking at the number of internationally successful Swedish chefs and the high standard of Swedish restaurants in general (roadside restaurants excepted), it may not be such a far-fetched idea after all. Especially if you also take into account the high-standard produce that Sweden has access to — from nature as well as from Swedish farms.
The idea behind “the new culinary nation” is to show the world the innovative Swedish cuisine, but having looked into the demand for information about Swedish food I’m not sure that innovative Swedish food is what people in general are interested in.
I had a look at the list of search terms that bring visitors to Sweden.se. Apart from various spellings of “Sweden” and the word for “weather” in different languages, some food terms are pretty high on the list. But it’s not exactly the most revolutionary dishes you find there: “köttbullar” is number 24, “kanelbullar” number 26 and “semla” number 37.
Köttbullar is Swedish for meatballs and they have for some strange reason become the typical example of Swedish food, although a quick look at Wikipedia shows just how many countries have their own types of meatballs.
On the other hand, kanelbullar are probably quite Swedish. It’s a wheat dough bun (bulle) filled with cinnamon (kanel), sugar and butter. But, then again, kanelbullar have been around for ages, so not very innovative either.
Lastly, semla is probably high on the search term list because it’s semla season right now. March 8 is THE semla day (called fettisdagen) this year, which means that it’s the last Tuesday before the 40-day period of fasting that precedes Easter in the Christian calendar. This is the excuse used to eat these sinfully delicious buns filled with almond paste and whipped cream. But — innovative? No, not exactly. It is claimed that semlor started to become popular in Sweden already in 1541.
I did, however, enjoy quite an innovative type of semla the other day. It was a strange hybrid between a kanelbulle and a semla. A kanelbulle was cut in two, and then filled with almond paste and whipped cream just like a normal semla. A bit over the top, if you ask me. So, if that’s innovative, I’ll stick with traditional — any day.
Let’s hope that Sweden’s innovative, new cuisine doesn’t lose track of what’s traditional and good. We found some favorites among Swedish–Ethiopian chef Marcus Samuelsson’s modernized traditional Swedish recipes. Hungry?
P.S. This is probably my last blog entry for quite some time. Next week I’m off on parental leave, and I’ll make sure to eat lots of semlor and use up a fair share of the 480 days off work that my husband and I are entitled to. So, until next time — all the best to all of you! 
If you can’t get enough of reading blogs I might have some suggestions for you. If you also happen to have an interest in art and design these tips should be just perfect!
Talented illustrator Camilla Engman shares the world with us from her point of view with a lot of beautiful and playful pictures.
If you are looking for home styling inspiration, Emma Fexeus blog Emmas designblogg, is the one to pay a visit.
Antonia is the girl behind the blog Swedish Love Affair. Her blog is more from an everyday-life in-Sweden perspective but you can definitely tell her passion for fashion and photography by reading the blog.
If you want even more insight into the everyday life in Sweden, why not check out Surviving in Sweden?
And if you want to read more about Swedish design I strongly recommend our new fact sheet on the topic.
Magazine rack Front Page by Front. (CC BY NC SA)
Have a nice weekend!
Swedish Fashion Goes Berlin
Sometimes KISS is the only way to go… Keep It Simple Stupid, so when we got involved in a fashion event in Berlin in January, Sweden.se webmaster Per brought a camera with him, handed the material over to colleague Rikard and voilà, a video summary of it all. A first camera job for Per and a first film editing job for Rikard. The result?
At Sweden.se, we analyze our work on the web on a regular basis — what seems to work (= reaches our target group) versus what doesn’t (for example, pages that get few visitors or few page views). At the beginning of every year, this process is more intense, as we look at the Sweden.se statistics for last year and, partly based on that, plan the year ahead — what to do and how to do it.
Sometimes it’s a frustrating job. We’ve noticed, for example, that a lot of the editorial content we published on Sweden.se during 2010 didn’t do at all as well as we thought it would. Why? Well, to be honest, we’re clueless. Increasing competition on the web? Not enough search engine optimization on the site? Or simply the wrong choice of topics?
On a happy note, our films seem to attract a fair number of viewers, which is really pleasing since we launched our film player, Watch, in 2010. And many people also found us on our Follow Sweden section (below, right) on The Local, Sweden’s news in English.
How can we make Sweden.se even better? What do you, our readers, want to know/see/hear?
The best thing for us would be if you could just tell us what you’d like to know about Sweden. More hard facts? More culture? More on how to move to Sweden? Do you like it when we divide the year into themes (like our current fashion theme)? Why not post a comment with your opinion below?
Another recurring question for the Sweden.se staff is what we can do, as in what we’re allowed to do as representatives of a Swedish public agency, the Swedish Institute. We can’t allow our content to be too controversial. Politics is strictly off-limits, for example, and foreign politics even more so.
This is a problem that especially concerns this staff blog. Our disclaimer says: “This blog is an outlet of individual opinion, and what is said here does not necessarily represent the views of the Swedish Institute.” — but that doesn’t entitle us to write whatever we like. No matter how personal we want to be in our tonality and content, the problem is that in this context we still act as representatives of the Swedish state. So we are told. And maybe that’s right.
As much as Sweden loves and promotes free speech, this blog may not be the right forum for content of a too sensitive nature. One real borderline case was my own post from the day after the election in September 2010. It passed, but only just. Sometimes edits have to be made. Sometimes posts are simply not published.
It’s just that I have a feeling that our readers are fairly critical and would actually like to be served some controversial opinions about Sweden every now and then rather than just being fed all the nice facts about our nice country. Don’t get me wrong — state-employed or not, I love Sweden, but that doesn’t mean that everything about the country is hunky dory. That would be weird. That’s why I think allowing some negative sides of Sweden to show just increases our credibility.
But that’s really for you to say. Please make your voices heard below, give us some guidance on what you’d like to see on Sweden.se and in this blog during 2011.
…is Sweden.se’s very own outlet of individual opinion. We all work at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm, with our offices right next to the Royal Palace in the Old Town. But what is said here does not necessarily represent the views of the Swedish Institute.