Sweden vs British Food! Fight!

It seems that the Swedish Women's football team has come across an excellent excuse as to why they have been pretty crap so far in the European Championships. Apparently it wasn't their fault but rather that of the bad British food they've been eating. Now that they have got their own chef in, Swedish naturally, everything is going to go just swimmingly. ("Målet som ska rädda Sverige - Dålig engelsk mat nära knäcka tjejerna" - Aftonbladet 2005-06-15, but curiously seems to be missing from their website).

The ease with which Swedish people comment on the awful British food has always amused me in the five and a half years that I have lived here. Normally I just grin and let it pass as, hey, its our British sense of humour that got us here in the first place (as I shall discuss later), but on the odd occasion that I fancy a good discussion/argument my reply of choice is "so how exactly does our meat, fish and potatoes differ from your meat, fish and potatoes?"

That's the thing, isn't it. Swedish food isn't exactly very good, is it? Quite bland really and you're mightly lucky to get anything that isn't Pytt i Panna (for our international readers: a Swedish dish that is basically little bits of meat, potatoes and onion fried together and then served with fried egg and beetroot) coming without boiled potatoes. Why is it that just about every internationally known TV chef or cook book writer is British? Translations of books by Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson are all over the place in Sweden, as are the associated TV shows, but where are the translations of "Jättegott Tina" or suchlike? Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com list absolutely nothing for Tina Nordström, the darling of Swedish TV chefery. If British food is so bad then why are Swedes falling over themselves to be taught how to cook by Brits?

Taking it on the offensive, even if British food is evil, what exactly has been Sweden's contribution to the culinary world? The smörgåsbord? Christ, for a start that isn't even a dish or style of cooking, it is a way of presenting food. Even then you'll be lucky to find a table full of food described as a "smorgasbord" in the English-speaking world. We generally call that a buffet, smorgasbord as a word is more-or-less reserved for when we want to refer to a varied selection of non-food items. "A smorgasbord of delights" looks a whole lot more exciting and exotic than "a buffet of delights". Think of it of similar to how Swedes throw bits of English into their conversation to, well, if you ask me it is to make themselves just look plain weird as they never seem to use the phrases in the right context. But that's another article for another time.

So lets move on to meatballs, or köttbullar as the natives call them. Amusingly, before I get started, I need to say that the Norwegian take on meatballs, which differ by just being slightly larger and flatter, are calledkjøttkaker, which translates approximately as "meat cakes". Mmmmm, meat cakes. Anyway, meatballs. We're not exactly talking high-class eats here. Come on, they're just meat and onion served with potatoes (a curious combination which you may have noticed somewhere before) but - and here is the killer bit - served with a milky gravy. I'm struggling to see how this is setting the world alight, chaps.

Whenever I bring up Swedish food with Swedes one of the first things they seem to mention is salmon as if no other country in the world is capable of having the fish in their waters. Sorry to break it to you guys, but the Norwegians, Canadians and, yes, the Brits love their salmon as well. To be honest I am pretty sure other countries have it as well, but I think those three will do you for now.

Swedes seem to be remarkably closed to other ways of eating their salmon as well. I once had this (well, more or less this, it isn't like I wrote it down at the time) conversation with a Swede regarding canned salmon:

M Panda: Why don't they have canned salmon in Sweden? I like that in a sandwich.
Swede: We have fresh salmon. It is very good.
M Panda: Yes, yes we have that to and yes, it is very good. But sometimes you don't want the hassle of all that, you just want to open a can, spread and eat.
Swede: Why would we do that? We have fresh salmon. It is very good.
M Panda: Yes, yes. But it isn't very convenient is it? It isn't like I can store copious amount of fresh salmon at home for those occasionas were I fancy a sandwich.
Swede: We have fresh salmon. You can buy it in a shop. It is very good.
M Panda: I know, but the problem is that it is in a shop and uncooked, whereas I am at home and hungry.
Swede: You can always go to the shop and buy some fresh salmon and cook it. It is very good. 
M Panda: But I don't want a huge operation. I am at home in my jim-jams. I just want a sandwich. I understand that you have fresh salmon, but why shouldn't we at least have the option of having canned salmon? Is it so bad to have other options?
Swede: Why would we want other options? We have fresh salmon. It is very good.
M Panda: You're not exactly getting what I am trying to say, are you?

Whilst we are on the subject of fish, Swedes seem to have this low opinion of British food whilst stuffing a huge amount of fish down them. Hello. Great Britain is an island where it is pretty difficult to get more than about 150 miles (and no, that does not mean 1500 kilometres) from the coast. We might just have come across fish on our travels. You never know, we may have eaten it as well. We even have your precious herring as a traditional breakfast food. Next time you're in the UK check out kippers. They're just smoked herring, which curiously seems to be just about the only variant of herring I don't seem to be able to get in Sweden.

To be honest, when you look at Germanic - and in reality Eastern European as well - food in general you don't see that much variation from country to country. Meat, fish and potatoes. That's because that was what was available to cook with in years gone by. You can't use exotic spices in everyday food if European's have only just got round to setting up a spice route with Asia. Sausages are a big one as well and something I haven't touched on. Despite the occasional oddity that still manages to be rather quite bland, for example falukorv, Swedish sausages are terrible. Anything even vaguely tasty is imported from elsewhere. The day I find a sausage with something exotic like, oooh, apple in a Swedish supermarket is the day the world ends.

The usual argument to support the view that British food is really bad is the lack of "British" restaurants in foreign countries. I always find it unusual to see this coming from a Swede as, let's face it, the world isn't exactly overflowing with "Swedish" restaurants either. The Nordic Bar in London claims to be "London's First Scandinavian Bar + Restaurant", hardly a sign of a huge Swedish cuisine movement, is it? On the other hand, places where I can eat British food are ten-a-penny in Stockholm. You see, us Brits did something cunning. Apart from Ireland there is probably no other country in the world where social scenes are based so much around the local bar (or pub, as we like to call them) as Great Britain. And guess what, those places also sell food. So when the idea of British pubs was exported around the world, British food was as well. And you can find British pubs literally everywhere. It just doesn't seem to have clicked with the foreigners yet that if they go out for the evening to a British pub, drinking British beer and eating British food that they have done nothing different to going to a "British" restaurant for the evening. What's in a word?

I mentioned earlier that I would offer my opinion as to where the international opinion of British food has come from. Well here it is: a sense of humour. Everyone knows about the British sense of humour. Everyone knows that when we're not laughing about toilets we're taking the piss, otherwise known as humourously putting down, everyone and everything. Including ourselves. Thus when someone comments on bad British food we are more likely to laugh and say something even worse about it than to actually take offence. And thus the myth is maintained. People see Brits laughing about British food being crap and think to themselves, "Well, if they think it's bad then it really must be". We are our own worst enemies.

One final thing to think about is how little immigrants to Sweden seem to have affected Swedish food culture. Other countries have taken foreign foods, mixed them around and made them their own, in some cases importing the food back to the country then emigrated from. Look at the United States, where the California Roll form of sushi came from as well as a standard of international Chinese takeaways, Chop Suey. Us Brits with our bland, terrible food have got in on the act with Chicken Tikka Masala and the Balti curries. I've seen both in Swedish restaurants, but if you told someone they were British they'd laugh at you hard in the face. But no, Tikka Masala is from up north in Glasgow and the Balti comes from Birmingham. But what have immigrants to Sweden brought with them? Kåldomar? Are Swedes just unwilling to allow foreign influence into their food culture? As they say, answers on a post card.

Update 2005-06-17:

Sweden lost their next game 3-2 against Norway in extra time, meaning that they are now out of the tournament. The question that is on everyone's lips is "will super-chef Anders Lidén, who came to the teams rescue, now find himself out of a job?"