A walk around any town, village or big city at dinner time during the Swedish summer you are most likely to be accompanied by a smell. And what smell would that be? Well, the smell of barbeque of course! Swedes are crazy about their grillar (barbeques), in fact a recent study shows that 94% of the Swedes over 15 barbeques during the summer. The grillsäsong (barbeque season) kicks off as soon as the weather gets slightly warmer. In my family, we even have a Christmas barbeque tradition. On the December the 22, no matter how many degrees below zero or how much snow we have – we barbeque. Or my dad barbeques, more correctly. A big piece of steak, to prepare us for all the endless julbord (Christmas tables) we are facing.

Anyway. You can barbeque more or less anywhere in Sweden – as long as the ground isn’t too dry (the weather forecast  will warn you about fire hazards)  and as long as you make sure to put the fire out and dispose your garbage afterwards. In some apartment blocks you are even aloud to do it on the balcony and pretty much all big blocks of flats have common areas with barbeques. Many public areas has  big barbeques that anyone can use and the sales of engångsgrillar (disposable barbeques) are rocketing by this time.

If you are invited to a party during the Swedish summer, well it’s highly likely that it will be a grillfest (barbeque party). At a typical Swedish grillfest, you will most certainly be served grilled meat, perhaps  ‘flintastek,’ ham cut in thick slices and marinated in vinegar before being barbequed. Other popular grillrätter (barbeque dishes) are korv (sausage) lax (salmon), majskolv (corn-on-the-cob) grönsaksspett (vegetable skewers) with halumi cheese, even homemade pizzas on the grill has become a growing trend.

With your main meat/fish/vegetable you would normally have a salad, perhaps a potato salad or just a nice grönsallad (green salad) and perhaps a splash of tsatziki, béarnaise sauce or garlic butter on top.  Mmm… makes my belly kurra (rumble), perhaps time for a barbeque English style? This is how we do it over here!

What’s on your barbeque this summer?