The program Exploring our Swedish Food Heritage meeting was first scheduled for the Saturday, March 14th, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak the meeting had to be cancelled. Over 2 years later, on September 10, 2022 the program could be held at Martin Luther Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. Several of SAHSWI members were involved in this program to present their favorite Swedish dish, the history, and their story behind it. The stories, history and recipes are now being added to SAHSWI web page along with other submissions from SAHSWI members. The plan is to continue adding submissions as they are received.
Included for each of the dishes described, related to the dish are (a) The member story or experience, (b) General history, (c) Recipe
There are 2 separate pages (1) Main Dishes, and (2) Desserts and Bakery, which are updated as more submissions are received. There are plans to add a page for Drinks later.
Our Swedish Food Heritage pages
Desserts and Bakery – link to be added
Drinks – Link to be added
General history of Swedish food
Swedish cuisine and food culture is described in the link below from HiSoUR website. It illustrates how the Swedish cuisine developed through the years from the early years when all ingredients were domestic, how food was preserved through salting, smoking, dried or fermented. It describes the basic “husmanskost” the traditional basic Swedish dishes and includes typical Swedish food such as potatoes, new potatoes for midsummer, crayfish, (harvested and eaten in August), chantarelle, the most popular mushroom, gravlax, marinated salmon, lingonberries, pickled herring, knäckbröd (crisp bread), the yellow pea soup and pancakes, räksmörgås (shrimp sandwich) and much more.
General information of Swedish food culture
My story of Swedish Food
Members of SAHSWI and people living in Wisconsin with Swedish heritage may submit their Swedish food story (to jesahsow@outlook.com) and it may be included in this section of the website.
Kurt Anderson’s Story
“I grew up on Swedish food and was particularly fond of Swedish “coffee cake” or Swedish cinnamon buns and loaves because my mother baked it regularly. All four of my grandparents emigrated from Sweden and met in Chicago where my parents were born, and I was born. As a very young child, I lived in a neighborhood on Chicago’s south side called Roseland which had a lot of Swedish immigrants.
For Christmas Eve every year, my wife (Chinese) will prepare a Swedish meal for dinner. It typically includes Swedish meatballs, lingonberries, potato sausage, Swedish rye bread, rice pudding, potatoes and marinated salmon. For breakfast, she typically has made Swedish skorpa which is lot like a biscotti. I loved to dip it in coffee to make it less hard and easier to eat. As a consequence, I was drinking coffee from a very young age (probably 6 years old).
Someone mentioned Swedish knäckebröd. I remember that my parents were trying to lose weight in their 50’s. One of their solutions was to eat this food with marinated salmon on top.“
Kurt Anderson
Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin 