Fiber Fool

Since I have the year off of hosting Christmas and we’re not formally exchanging gifts with DH’s family I’m thinking I should contribute liberally to the selection of cookies and candy that we all graze on when we get together at Christmas. I haven’t settled on recipes yet. I thought it would be fun to hear what recipes make the holidays for you! A few favorites and possible candidates for this years list are below:

For me now, it isn’t Christmas without pepperkakor - an orange scented ultra thin and crispy gingerbread-like cookie. This wasn’t a regular on the table of sweets at Grandma Irma’s house, but it occasionally popped up at our church’s holiday gatherings. I’ve been making them almost every year for a good share of my time here in Colorado.

This is another Swedish cookie. It is a recipe I got out of my personal baking bible, The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. They are called Citronsmakåger and are lemon cookies that are a bit cake-like in texture. I’m contemplating going in the orange direction with a dark chocolate glaze/frosting. They are really simple and quick, a nice trait for holiday baking. Especially after the rather intensive pepperkakor that needs rolled out so thin and cut.

This is another from Ojakangas’ book - Kanelkakor or Cinnamon Dreams. I think what I like so much about these Swedish cookie recipes is their often liberal use of flavorings, be it spices like cinnamon and ginger and cardamom or strong citrus. It means they often get away with a more moderate amount of sugar. That too is a welcomed thing on the sweet table - sweet, but not too sweet! If memory serves these are quite quick to pull together as well.

Lefse is another thing I *have* to have during the holiday season. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is much like a flour tortilla, but it is made from potatoes. Growing up in Minnesota we ate it slightly warm with butter and a sprinkling of sugar. I’m told it is eaten a multitude of ways in the Scandinavian countries, including in place of a hot dog bun. I’ve branched out some and had Nutella on it (yum!) and sometimes brown sugar rather than white. Or a mix of yogurt and brown sugar or lingonberry preserves. The kind I can get here isn’t as good as the stuff I grew up eating, but it works. I have all the equipment to make it myself, but so far I haven’t. It is a time intensive process as you cook one round at a time on a special iron and I think it is pretty delicate to handle the dough and such. But one of these years I’m gonna put on my big girl pants and give it a go!

I’d also like to give my aunt Karen’s chocolate covered caramels another go. So far at a mile high I haven’t had much luck. The first batch many years ago were not quite hard candy, but not far from it. Since then I think I’ve been afraid of them being too hard and have undercooked them. We’ve also in the past made rosettes, another time suck sort of project. I loved them, but they went “stale” by the next day which made me really sad. I think we must have done something wrong (wrong oil temperature?) as I know the ones I ate in Minnesota were not made the same day I ate them. We do have two sets of irons so both DH and I could fry one which made for shorter work. If I were still in Minnesota I’d like just buy them, but I’ve not found anyone who carries them around here.

Your turn! What foods make your holiday?

Carnival is coming to an end today as tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of the Lenten season. Now the purists will begin indulging in semla. I’m going to keep this short and sweet as I hope to release a FikaCast later today that talks in much more detail about this tradition, so I’ll leave you with some photos of my semla baking adventures in the past…

Oh, and can I just say how much I *love* this Swedish calendar that I got at House of Jacob’s after Christmas? It has little drawings like the semlor above on any of the special days :-) Thanks DH!

Saint Lucia is a celebratory day in Scandinavia. Along with Advent, it marks the beginning of the holiday season. Despite it being a saint day it is observed by many, often with traditions that are more pagan in nature than Catholic or Orthodox. Today, it is always on December 13th, though it used to land on winter solstice each year prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

Also known as St. Lucy day, it honors the martyr, St. Lucy of Syracuse who lived in Italy in the 4th Century. Little is known about her true history, though she is the center of many legends. One tells the tale of her eyes being gouged out for an admirer whom she did not love who felt her eyes were her greatest asset. They were said to later be restored by God. She is often represented in artwork as a woman with a dish bearing two eyeballs because of this legend. Another tale relates a similar story but the admirer tried to burn Lucia, but she prayed to God and he saved her from burning due to her kindness.

Lucy means light and that sums up the celebration in one word. It is a day of looking forward to the days growing longer and the nights shorter. Many of the customs also revolve around light and it is oftentimes referred to as the celebration of light.

Traditionally the eldest girl in a family wears a white gown and a crown of lit candles upon her head and carried a tray of coffee, Saint Lucia Buns (saffransbullar) and pepperkakor to her parents while leading a procession of any younger daughters in white carrying one lit candle each. They all sing a traditional song about the light Lucia used to overcome the darkness. Following the process it is common to sing more carols and songs about light and Lucia.

Until the early 20th century this practice was one done in homes only. Then in 1927 Stockholm elected an official St. Lucia for the city and began the traditional of a public procession. It has spread and most cities, schools, and other municipalities elect a Lucia and there is even a national Lucia crowned each year. Boys are also incorporated into these processions in various ways today.

In honor of St. Lucia, I made the saffransbullar last night. The St. Lucia buns are also called Saffron Buns in English. They are made of slightly sweet yeast dough infused with saffron. The dough is rolled into snakes and formed into curly “S” shapes and topped off with an egg yolk wash and two raisins. I had a fleeting moment when I thought I would get up very early this morning and make them, but DH talked me into making them the night before. He had baking to do so they were really finished about 1am anyway. At the darkest hours of the night, just as they should be!

If you want to learn more about St. Lucia, check out these sites…
- St. Lucia Day at Wikipedia
- St. Lucy at Wikipedia
- Lucia Morning in Sweden
- Lucia at Scandinavica.com
- Lucyfest
- Saffransbullar and Pepperkakor at Sweden.se
- St. Lucia Day photos at Flickr

There is also some great information in Swedish Christmas in America and The Swedish Table as well as a whole menu in Scandinavian Feasts.

Four years ago today, about this time I was enjoying a rather embarassing cajun breakfast/brunch with my parents, sister, maternal grandparents, and best friend from college. It was embarassing because Grandma Bakke was currently on prednisone and was eating off of *everyone’s* plate, LOL! Then I headed out to the hair dresser where mom got her hair done in a manner that made her look eerily like her mother. By about 4pm we were gathered at the church for photos. By 6:30 or 7pm I was married! The next morning I learned that my paternal grandfather had passed away early that morning, but he was present at the wedding in DH’s vows and when I called grandma before the ceremony as a way to make them feel a part of the special day even though they couldn’t make the trip to Colorado. It was a bit eery after the fact.

This morning DH was tricky and said he was going to stop for donuts and would stop back by the house before heading to work and asked me what I would like. When he returned he had a “dozen” roses. I went to pull down a vase and he said he had a vase and went back to his office. He produced this craftsman-inspired vase that both of us had liked at a local shop downtown a few weeks ago. Now, the dozen roses were actually 14 as all “dozens” at our local Safeway seem to be and they were too much for the vase so we split them into two vases. Then, he said “wait, I have something else.” He again went back to his office and apparently opened the mysterious American Red Cross box that I had to take delivery one a while ago. He ordered me the American Red Cross Serviceman’s Sock Kit! What I was surprised at was the fineness of the yarn and the largeness of the needles that came in the kit. I suspect I’ll use some of my own needles when I knit it up. But it is very cool and I love the historical info that is in it.

Tonight we’re going out to eat at a local Italian restaurant where we had our small reception following the wedding ceremony. We haven’t been there in some time. If we’re lucky we’ll get our waiter from that night! We’re hoping to get away to the mountains for some cross country skiing here this fall though I’m a little worried that our calendar is filling a bit too fast. But we’ll see…

Note: Our scanner has more or less biten the dust. When I went to scan the photo above it was awful so I had to get a little artistic to try to disguise the poor scanning job a bit. I softened it and added the flourishes since they kind of went along with the vase Drew gave me this morning.

Grandpa Schueler, I love you and miss you!

Did you know that the Swedish consume the second most coffee in the world per capita? They fall behind only Finland. This explains a lot to me when I learned of this. Growing up it seemed the adults around seemed to always be drinking coffee. I didn’t understand it. It tasted bitter and the last thing I wanted to drink when the heat index was over 100 degrees was hot coffee.

I have a friend who recently got her Swedish citizenship and she was always talking about fika (pronounced “fee-ka” I believe) and from what I could gather it seemed like tea to me, but it seemed like she would partake in this activity many times a day. I never did ask her what it was. Then right before my mom’s visit we picked up a book from the Univeristy of Minnesota Press at a great local kitchen store called The Swedish Table. The first section of the books contains memories of the traditions the author partook in when she was growing up in the north of Sweden and in there she described fika as a break from your activities in which you drink coffee and eat a sweet. Wow, did that hit home for me!

I grew up on the old family farm where my great-great aunt Emma and her brothers Aaron and Karl lived. My paternal grandparents built a house across the gravel road just before my parents got married and my father moved down the hallway from a kid room to the master bedroom. When I was little and we had to hire neighbor boys and the like (well, young men really) to aid in farm work such as putting up hay. It was expected that all the workers would be provided not only lunch, but also a morning coffee and an afternoon coffee. I realized they were working hard and it was often quite hot and definitely stifling for whomever was in the hayloft, but it always kind of surprised me how much work they could get done when they were stopping all the time to eat and drink. Now, the young men usually had lemonade with thier cinnamon roll or cookies, but the older men almost always had coffee, no matter how hot it was.

Helene Henderson describes fika as “The most important custom in Sweden… The day begins and ends with fika, and it also happens many times between, while you talk about the weather, the all time favorite topic of conversation for most Swedes (in the north at least).” That is why everything in my home church in Svea (we pronounce it sa-veh’-ah but it should be pronounced svee’-ah) revolved around coffee and cookies, no matter the time of day! And that is why to this day grandma Irma has coffee and rusks at 10am and 2pm!

Fika can be elaborate with the requisite 7 kinds of cookies (a traditional measure of one’s housekeeping skills) and sweet rolls and the like, or it can be simple and just be coffee and a rusk as grandma Irma often does. Henderson said in her family fika almost always included a pastry called bullar, so we gave her bullar recipe a try and invited a couple friends over on a whim for fika on Saturday.

Bullar is similar to our cinnamon rolls. It consists of a yeast-raised dough that is slightly sweet. The dough is rolled out after the first raise, slathered with butter and sprinkled with a cinnamon, cardomom, and sugar recipe. Then it is folded in half and cut into 1-inch wide strips. You take the strips and twist them and then wrap them around your index finger. They rise for a second time and then you bake them. Traditionally they are washed with egg and sprinkled with pearl sugar, though we did not have any pearl sugar on hand so we opted for a powdered sugar glaze. They are lighter and less sweet than most American cinnamon rolls and there is of course that nice addition of cardomom. The recipe recommends fresh cadomom, but I’m not sure where we might be able to get some, so we used fresh ground dried at the amount recommended. We did decide we would up it a bit as it was hard to pick up on that nice change.

DH has decided he won’t mind partaking in fika on a regular basis as long as he can substitute tea. So we’ll be trying some of the other recipes for baked goods in The Swedish Table in coming weeks or until it gets too hot to bake. Once we’ve had an opportunity to try more of the recipes I’ll formulate a more formal book review of it.

Along with my greater exploration of my Swedish heritage and customs I’ve also taken on the goal of writing to grandma Irma weekly. I realized when writing her thank you for my birthday card last week that once you blow the font up 20pt and bold it that it doesn’t take that much writing to make a decent letter and as long as it is large and bold she can read it much easier than we can talk on the phone. I can also send along full-page photos so she can see what I’m up to. Last week I sent her some Chicken Soup for the Souls that I dubbed to tapes and two photos of me and my shawl. This week I’m going to send a picture of our bullar and ask her if she remembers great-great aunt Emma making anything similar.