The year was 1852 when the current standard for what we Swedes usually put on display on our Christmas table – was cemented. Just during this year (and the year before), industrialization had its first breakthrough in Sweden and many establishments of what would become Swedish self-evident took place in 1852. We invented cross-country skis. We started wearing hats. We started to swear and we collectively came up with what would be the typical super Swedish Christmas food. Herring in vinegar. Pig’s feet in vinegar. Dried long. Ground veal cleaner in gelatin. Boiled pigtail. Potato. It was there, and then – that the Christmas table was created. 1852.
The years have passed, we can safely say. Mäki says he remembers what it was like “back in the day”, but of course the rest of us were not even thinking when Raskens, Vaasa and all the other old men-in-the-west for the first time squeezed the solemn Christmas delicacies into Polio blisters and cedar teeth. It was also common at this time for the upper social classes to feel some pride in their hair lice (they were often called “Itchy friends”), chose not to cure severe bronchitis because they appreciated the raspy tone of voice for their time – and recommended bedsore.
That today… In 2024, for the 172nd year in a row since the emergence of The Christmas table® now collectively plan to eat the same dishes, again, should in more ways than one be categorized as pure insanity. Herring in vinegar. Pig’s feet in vinegar. The calf reindeer in gelatin and the dried ling will be in the face this year as well. People flock to the grocery stores, scream riots and crowd in front of the refrigerated counters to buy food at record overprices that we classify as garbage for 364 days a year. But not on Christmas Eve. Ooonä! Then it’s “delicacies”. Nice stuff. Just like the wooden teeth and the black plague.
Christmas food can of course vary. Certainly. You will write now that it is possible to stick to the meatballs. For the prince sausage. For the wort bread. To the cured salmon. But of course you are not fooling me. Because there is something obscene about the attitude to Christmas food that most Swedes share. To sit and reluctantly gorge on pure filth just because it’s a “tradition” sounds like mass psychosis, in my world. And always will.
The meatballs are smashed with cinnamon, cloves, allspice and are thus much more disgusting than a regular fucking meatball with a flavorful, smooth brown sauce. The potato gratin is ruined with small disgusting fish, prince sausage itself is the single worst sausage in terms of taste and texture sold in grocery stores today and the wort bread, with raisins? No. No. And then: Ling, that fish that is so macabrely ugly and inedible that our Swedish fishermen refuse to pick it up for the rest of the year, is dried against the wall, soaked and eaten traditionally with a finer flour sauce, because in 1852 they had no refrigerators. or ovens, sous vide rods, wits or forks. Or flavored sauces, from France.
In addition to that, we can of course talk for hours about veal jam. About pig’s feet. About pickled herring. If the worst cooked ham that can be eaten goes, it is always prepared according to Rasen’s old-fashioned 1800s recipe and thus becomes extra useless by today’s taste standards. Of course, we should join forces. Narrow our thoughts, sow our heads together and abolish the reigning Christmas food once and for all. Because just as little as you (and I) want hair lice, bronchitis or gout, just as little do we (collectively) really want sit and eat this shit on the most festive day of the year.