About the Country Chefs:
Lina Sandén – Diet consultant and recipe creator:
Lina has a passion for healthy and delicious food for all occasions. With great knowledge of food and meal construction Lina develops inspiring recipes for all kinds of diets, nutrition choices or allergies. And of course it is almost as important to eat foods for a healthy body as foods for a happy heart, like chocolaty foods. She has a bachelor degree in food science and nutrition from Uppsala University.
Frida Olsson – Food ethnologist and recipe creator
Frida has one foot in the food culture and the other in the kitchen. With a combination of foods seen from a cultural perspective and a passion for cooking her recipes gets an exciting depth. She has a Bachelor degree in food ethnology from Lunds University.
Can you tell us a little about the Swedish cuisine?
The Swedish cuisine today is very open to foreign food influences and has been that way for two hundred years. The domestic Swedish food is based on the subsistence home, before industrialization, which itself produced the foods they ate. Traditional Swedish food is today called “husmanskost”.
“Husmanskost” is inexpensive and simple food that people ate historically, but has come to be what we Swedes call everyday dinner – it is low priced and at the same time provides great feeling of satiety. A very typical “husmanskost” dish consist of: fried meat (e.g. meatballs), boiled potatoes (or mashed potatoes) and some gravy.
A concept that we like to use and that influences the Swedish cuisine is “Food Fusion”. For us this means that we often cook our Swedish classic dishes with influences of flavours from other cuisines. The classic meatballs can easily retrieve flavor influences from several Asian cuisines, the potatoes can be replaced with the Italian spaghetti and gravy could turn into a white wine sauce with flavors from southern Europe.
What are the closest contenders to be called a national dish in Sweden?
In Sweden, we eat a lot of fish in many different forms. During the holidays, fish has along with the meatballs, a guaranteed place on the smörgåsbord: herring and Swedish-style salmon are the most obvious choices. Herring is served with potatoes, eggs, sour cream and chives. Salmon is best served with mustard sauce and of course with fresh boiled potatoes.
What would you consider to be the national dessert of Sweden?
In Sweden, we love to have something sweet with our coffee – ”Fika” as we call it. The “Kanelbulle” (cinnamon bun) is the most traditional and the most Swedish thing you could ever eat with coffee. In the old days cinnamon buns were served together with seven kinds of cookies. It was important that all the cookies looked and tasted different. The more varieties you made, the better and richer you were, but seven cookies was the absolute lowest number you could offer a guest!
Today many of our most favourite Swedish desserts are inspired by other culinary cultures, including France and Italy with tarts and panna cotta. The traditional summer dessert in Sweden is strawberry cake. With a lot of whipped cream and delicious strawberries it is the ultimate summer cake.
Tell us more about your food business
ReceptSkaparna is a company based in Uppsala, Sweden. Our vision is to custom make recipes for companies in the food industry or those who work with food and media overall. Depending on how the customer wants their personal brand to appear or their own products to be brought to attention, we develop inspiring recipes and take tempting food images.
We work as consultants and manage all parts from preparation of recipes, test cooking, styling, photographing and editing.
Together, we possess a broad knowledge of meal structure, food culture and culinary recipes. Above all, cooking has a big part in our hearts.
Try their recipe for the Swedish national dish >>>
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