It is Thursday today, and if you were lucky enough to be in Sweden today, you might have noticed that pancakes and pea soup were on nearly every lunch menu throughout the country.  It happens every Thursday, and for a foreigner, the combination of pea soup and pancakes is a strange one.  It may seem strange, but it is delicious.

Every day, restaurants throughout Sweden offer an affordable option that they call Dagens Lunch. Dagens Lunch is usually a main dish, salad, maybe some bread, a drink, and coffee.  These meals tend to vary throughout the week and from restaurant to restaurant.  But not on Thursdays.

Thursdays have been pancakes and pea soup for years.  While living there I asked around as to why.  Everyone had a different answer.  Some claimed that the tradition started with the Swedish military. Pea soup was an easy way to feed the soldiers cheap and easy, while also keeping them happy.

Some claimed that it harkens back to a more religious time period in Sweden where Fridays were meatless and so Thursday was a last chance to get that last bit of meat.  Others said it was simply a marketing ploy by some of the finer hotels in Sweden offering it, and since the sincerest form of flattery is imitation, other restaurants followed suit.  Whatever the reason, the tradition stuck.

And so Thursdays have become synonymous with pea soup and pancakes.  The kind of pea soup that looks like a baby already digested it.  It’s not an appetizing look, but add a little ham and some mustard, and the pea soup really hits the spot.  Follow that with flat Swedish pancakes smothered in whipped cream, jelly, and maybe a bit of sugar, and you have a meal fit for a king.  Or at least your average Swede on your average Thursday.