Swedish Meatballs

swedish meatballs (svenska köttbullar)
Swedish meatballs are an essential part of Swedish life! One can eat them with potatoes-cooked , mashed, fried or with chips (French fries) or with macaroni and ketchup. The classical way is with mashed or boiled potatoes, gravy with added heavy cream, lingonberry sauce and finely grated carrots. Some people like dill-pickled sliced gherkins or cucumbers with the dish too. Go to IKEA for a peek-taste of Swedish meatballs and then go home and make your own variation! Every family has their own special recipe which they use for Christmas (a must have) and Easter! Nothing tastes as good as "mammas meatballs"! Add allspice and garlic for Christmas and see what I mean!
Traditional Swedish food is all about following the seasons- pickled herring and fresh salmon in the Spring. beef and mushrooms, strawberries and wild strawberries in the summer. crayfish and fermented herring (very, very smelly), blueberries, lingonberries and up North cloudberries in the Autumn. For a few weeks in September-October Sweden more-or-less closes down when the elk hunting season begins, so for a lot of families elk is a main source of meat, too. and in the Winter- salted ham, pickled herring, beetroots and swedes (not the human variety...)
Nowadays one can buy everything all year round, but we have still kept some of these food traditions and we still go out mushroom and berry foraging in the Summer and Autumn months. I love walking in the endless forests searching and picking, coming home and cooking preserves and putting mushrooms in the freezer for the winter.