Swedish Language Blog

Recently, I was asked to put together a recipe for pyttipanna. Actually, I was asked to put together a recipe for a Scandinavian dish. When I think Swedish food, I think lots of things, but the one thing that I actually make on a regular basis is pyttipanna.

Pyttipanna is essentially just a bunch of leftovers thrown into a frying pan with potatoes as the base. It is considered husmanskost in Sweden which can be translated as home cooking. The meal is quite common in Sweden still today and one of the few things my father was able to cook for my brothers and me when the dinner duties fell on him while we were growing up. Each recipe will differ. Mostly because, as I mentioned above, it’s just a bunch of leftovers. Without further ado, is the “recipe” (in quotation marks, because I throw in all kinds of veggies and meats that aren’t necessarily listed):

What you’ll need:
Potatoes
Onions
Meat
Oil
Salt
Pepper
Egg
Red Beets

What you’ll do:

• Chop as many potatoes as you want to eat or that will fit in your frying pan.
• Boil them for a while so that they are soft-ish but not cooked all the way through (some people fry the potatoes separately. I like to boil them first).
• Dump a bit of oil (or butter, or margarine, or fat) into a frying pan. Let it heat up.
• Toss in your potatoes. Start frying them.
• Chop your onions in chunks.
• Add your onions to your frying potatoes.
• If you’re feeling adventurous, add more veggies. I like bell peppers, jalapenos, and garlic (none of which are particularly Swedish, but all of which are delicious).
• Chop your meat into chunks.
• Add the meat to your frying potatoes and onions (you can choose sausage, hotdogs, meatballs, ground beef. Whatever. If you’re a vegetarian, you can add mushrooms. Or tofu.)
• Add salt. Add pepper. Lots of pepper.
• Keep frying. The meat needs to cook through. The potatoes should be cooked through (I usually cook them until they have that fried look on the outside). The onions should be see-through.
• Technically, while all this is happening you should fry an egg in a different frying pan. That gets laid on top of your pyttipanna when it is ready to eat. Of course, I am awful at frying eggs, so I usually just move the pyttipanna to one side in the pan and crack an egg in there and kind of let it half-fry, half-mix with the pyttipanna.
• Once your egg is ready to go (it shouldn’t take long because you want it a little runny), serve it up on a plate and add some red beets on the side.
• Add more pepper.
• Then squirt a bunch of ketchup on it.
• Eat. With a fork and knife. It is Swedish after all.

What is your favorite Swedish dish to eat? To make?

Every Saturday, children throughout Sweden have a little extra kick in their step. Not just because it’s Saturday and they don’t have to go to school, but because Saturday means lördagsgodis. Lördagsgodis is of course one of those fun compound words that we sometimes write about here (remember, you can read about the longest word in the Swedish language). Lördagsgodis, lördag = Saturday, godis = candy, lördagsgodis = Saturday candy!

Candy is a big deal in Sweden. Nearly every single grocery store will have a wall or entire section of bulk candy in various bins to choose from. They also have your classic candy bars and packages, but the fun is in picking and choosing. Gas stations have this. Convenience stores. If you can buy food, chances are there is a wall of candy somewhere nearby. Small children (and, let’s be honest, me) love this. Parents hate it. At least when their small children are in tow. Because as you walk to the front of the store to pay, you are faced with the temptation of scores of different candies to choose from.

This is one of those cultural traditions that I remember growing up with as a child in Sweden. When we moved to the US, I tried my best to keep the tradition alive and well. I failed. Turns out without the walls of Swedish candy at stores in the US, the logistics of lördagsgodis just weren’t practical.

This really is an incredible phenomenon to witness though. If you’re ever looking to buy some candy on a Saturday, get to the store early. By mid-afternoon the bins are picked over and you’re left with the dregs of Swedish candy. Of course, the dregs of Swedish candy are still delicious. Therein lies the problem. Your wallet and your teeth may be hurting if you aren’t strong-willed enough. As an adult, when I moved back to Sweden, I abided by the lördagsgodis rule. Usually. Some gummy candies are just too good to pass up.

What is your favorite type of Swedish candy? Do you partake in lördagsgodis if you are living abroad?

I’ve been living in Wisconsin for the last 18 months or so working on a graduate degree in Scandinavian Studies. I moved here after having lived in Stockholm for just over three years. Most of my work actually focuses on Swedish Americans. I travel around interviewing Swedish immigrants and later Swedish-American generations. It’s a lot of fun and I love hearing new stories and just how people celebrate their Swedishness.

I’ve learned a lot along the way. It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun if I hadn’t of course, but one thing that has struck me has been the different Swedish-American foods. A couple that I had never even heard of until moving to Wisconsin and a few that seem to be ubiquitous.

The first one that caught my attention was egg coffee. I had never seen this in Sweden, but it consists of coffee grounds mixed with one egg. You can choose to either include the shell or not. Your call. I don’t actually drink coffee so am of no use in commenting on the tastiness, anyone who can speak to the quality of egg coffee?

The next food item is more of an ingredient than anything else – Jell-O. It’s everywhere. Especially in salads. It seems that you can mix just about anything you want, fruit, vegetables, candy, whatever, into Jell-O and you’ve got yourself a salad. Jell-O was always tough to find in Sweden in my opinion, and when it was available it tended to be in the ethnic food section with other American foods. In this region of the United States though, Jell-O is a staple of Swedish-American cuisine.

And then there are your classics. Pancakes. Meatballs. Sill. Glögg. It seems no matter where you go, some foods are just staples of Swedishness. They might differ a bit in terms of recipe, but the idea is there. They act as a sort of base from which to build on.

What Swedish foods do you eat? And what are your favorites? If you’re here in the US, do you have any Swedish recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation?