I’ve received a few requests from readers in America to show some images of simple, regular, everyday stuff in Sweden that looks different. So here’s the first of a few installments: Grocery store items!
If you’re interested in groceries, you can see more in a couple previous stories Inside the Secret Society of Swedish Grocery Store Owners and Grocery Carts, Food and Pants Sizes.
Adzuki beans and white beans. Adzukis are popular in Japanese foods.
Granola, obviously.
Potato chips shelved like books.
Natural potato chips.
Coffee cream in the jar on the left and organic milk in the cartons on the right. Ekologisk means “organic” and it’s everywhere in Sweden.
Regular heavy cream and whipped cream.
Low-fat milk.
Green tea sweetened with honey on the left. To the right is filmjölk, a strange, thick, sour, Swedish fermented milk product. This variety is flavored with bananas and lime. I can almost taste the barf as I’m typing this. Well, just wait…
It’s exactly what you think it is. Blood pudding. This product is made from boiling blood together with pureed meat, barley, oatmeal, or some other stuff until it coagulates into a solid.
Blood pudding slices, served warm. Bulgh!
Super-salty licorice candies shaped like skulls.
Wash down all that blood pudding and salty licorice with some organic potatoes.
Have some alphabet cookies for dessert. They’re spelling out, “I love you.”
A couple scenes of the open market at Hötorget. Most of the bright yellow, brown and orange you see are wild, funnel-shaped kantarell mushrooms.
Anyone walking through this marketplace is berated with countless shouts from merchants, “Half price! Special offers! Half price!” I’m not sure if the hard-sell actually works with fruits and vegetables, or if these guys just like hearing themselves shout.
That is not green tea on the left, it’s fil with a green tea taste, oddly enough.
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I work at a store in the US that sells salted licorice, only Europeans seem to buy it! We even get it with hot chili added! Blech!! We do sell Swedish gingersnaps too and they are one of our most popular items all year but especially at Christmas! Yum!
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Hey…I’m loving your blog……but I’m not loving having to wait so long for another post…LOL
Julie
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I just LOVE this blog. You make me realize stuff about my own country that I had not pondered before! And you are extremely funny as well, haha! I’ll keep on reading this for sure!
Ah, the lovely filmjölk… if you find that strange, you’d probably refrain from trying “långfil”, a special type of filmjölk mostly eaten in Norrland. It is… well, special, to say the least.
PS: try A-fil with a tea spoon of cinnamon and a tablespoon of honey!
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