STOCKHOLM -- The young woman behind the lunch counter in Nordiska Museet watched as I looked over the usual salads, bowls of fruit and sandwiches.
"Would you like a typical Swedish lunch?" she asked, in perfect English.
Of course I would. She took potato pancakes from the hot griddle, put them on a plate with three slices of thick bacon and handed it across the high counter: "Help yourself to all the lingonberries you want," she said, pointing to the biggest bowl of bright red lingonberry preserves I had ever seen.
It wasn't exactly the lunch I anticipated -- I was hoping for authentic Swedish meatballs -- but it was delicious. The pancakes were made of freshly grated potatoes, the bacon brought back memories of American farm breakfasts, and the lingonberries were both sweet and a little tangy. Meatballs could wait.
It was our first morning in Stockholm, and this was the first of many surprises.
Nordiska Museet, or Nordic Museum, was celebrating the changes in food and cooking over the past 30 years. Remember the avocado green stoves, the fondue pots and coq au vin of the American '70s? They were popular in Sweden then, too. What about pate cooked in the microwave in the 1980s and glass noodle salads in the '90s? The rage in Sweden, too.
In the grocery department of Stockholm's big NK department store, we hunted for preserved cloudberries, an old Swedish favorite. We found more than 30 kinds of yogurt (just as in America) but only a few jars of cloudberries, the tart, amber-colored berries that grow wild in cold climates and make such wonderful jam.
Both of my husband's parents came from Sweden. His father was from Falun and his mother, who worked as a cook when she first arrived in Pittsburgh, from Uddivala. He grew up on Swedish meatballs, rye bread, herring and rye crispbread. So we seek out Swedish restaurants when we travel -- Aquavit, Christer's and Ulrika's are favorites in New York City.
We arrived in Stockholm with a list of top-rated restaurants to try, but we couldn't make it to all of them in four days. We found meatballs at one -- the smorgasbord at the Grand Veranda in the Grand Hotel -- but there was so much other good food we postponed our hunt.
The Grand Veranda has an elaborate, traditional buffet, served each lunch hour in the window-lined dining room overlooking the boat-filled harbor. If a traveler could eat only one meal in Stockholm, this should be it.
First, our waiter directed, think of the smorgasbord as a four- to six-course meal. Take a clean plate for each course, and don't overload your plate. Begin with herring dishes (there are eight kinds) and hot potatoes. Then try a slice of sharp Swedish cheese, crispbread and a shot of aquavit chased with cold Scandinavian beer.
He was adamant about the aquavit. Absolutely necessary, he said, "and you'd better drink it all. It's good medicine for the stomach." He hovered around the table to see if we followed instructions, so I did. One small glass of 1874 Grand Aquavit, flavored with caraway, fennel, aniseed and sherry, went down the hatch with one gulp.
The rest was easy. Fish dishes -- smoked eel, carpaccio of reindeer and four salmon dishes, including the Swedish specialty, gravlax served with mustard and dill. Salads, egg dishes and cold cuts of meat and poultry. Hot dishes, especially meatballs with lingonberries. Cheeses. Whole radishes. And finally, dessert -- blueberry pie, lemon meringue pie, fruit salad, a big bowl of whipped cream (not from a can) to top anything you like, and more.
We watched men in suits and fashionably dressed women make the requisite trips to the smorgasbord, and later, pick up their briefcases and presumably go back to their offices. We walked it off with a long stroll through the Old Town.
Wedholms Fisk restaurant has one claim to fame and needs no other: superb fresh fish. The restaurant is quiet and understated, with plain, dove-gray, almost stark decor. The customers seem to be all locals. The menu is seafood. We ordered the specialty -- turbot, sole, scallops and lobster in champagne sauce. I'll wager the recipe calls for three pounds of butter and one bottle of champagne. Divine.
Almost opposite in style is Erik's Gondolen, a long, narrow restaurant atop a tower with a beautiful view over the harbor, Malaren, and the Baltic. A trio of herring appetizers, followed by main courses of Dover sole, wrapped around a seafood mousse and served with potatoes (as is most everything in Sweden), is typical. Erik Laller-stedt is a top chef in Stockholm, and the restaurant is big and crowded.
Operakallaren, a Swedish institution since 1787, is as elegant and opulent as it gets in Stockholm. As the name indicates, it's at the opera house. It's famous for smorgasbord (not open when we were there), as well as pickled herring, rolled herring, reindeer, elk, and ice cream with cloudberries.
Paul and Norbert's is the Charlie Trotter's of Stockholm. The courses are many, the servings tiny and exquisite, and the prices enormous -- just as in Trotter's fine Chicago restaurant. We put ourselves into the waiter's hands, letting him choose a glass of wine to go with each of nine courses, and ate all of everything. The food was superb.
Paul and Norbert's is the hot restaurant in Stockholm, and what it serves is a far cry from what we once thought of as Swedish cooking. It's also very expensive (about $200 a person for the tasting menu) which makes it even more expensive than Operakallaren. So we didn't really expect to get meatballs here, and, for financial reasons, we don't expect to be going back.
Back in Pittsburgh, I resumed my search for "authentic" kottbullar, or Swedish meatballs. My husband scoffed. He says he can't remember his mother ever using a recipe; she used whatever was on hand -- ground meat, onions, eggs, milk, bread, salt and pepper. An old recipe book published in the 1950s by the Women's Society of Christian Service of the Jenny Lind Methodist Church in McKeesport confirms that theory.
Called "Treasured Recipes from our American and Swedish Kitchens," it was written by women who emigrated from Sweden and by their daughters. It has recipes for Swedish brown beans, yellow pea soup, klimps (dumplings), flaskpannakka (bacon pancakes), fruit soup, potatis korv (potato sausage), pepparkakor (ginger cookies), several herring dishes, and one lone recipe for meatballs. Yes, it calls for ground meat, bread, onion, eggs, milk, salt and pepper.
I searched other old ethnic cookbooks and found a few variations. Then I went to the search engine "Google" on the Internet, and asked for "Swedish meatballs." In 0.07 seconds, up popped 12,200 recipes.
End of search.
Swedish Meatballs
This old recipe sounds authentic, because gingersnaps are part of Sweden's culinary heritage. Gingersnaps make the meatballs tasty and stretch the meat. Serve them with noodles for dinner, plain as an hors d'oeuvre, or with lingonberry preserves. In a pinch, you can always substitute cranberry sauce.
20 (2-inch-size) gingersnaps, or 1 1/4 cups ground
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 pound ground chuck
1/2 pound lean ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups water
2 beef bouillon cubes, crumbled
Parsley sprigs
With rolling pin or straight-sided glass, crush gingersnaps in clean plastic bag. Measure 1 1/4 cups. In large bowl, combine gingersnap crumbs with milk and egg. Add chuck, pork, onion, salt, pepper and allspice. Using hands, mix well to combine.
Refrigerate, covered, 1 hour.
With moistened hands, shape mixture into meatballs, 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
In hot butter in large skillet, saute meatballs, just enough at one time to cover bottom of skillet, until browned all over. Remove to a 2-quart casserole as they brown.
Remove skillet from heat. Pour off drippings, reserving 1/4 cup, adding more butter if necessary. Stir flour smoothly into drippings. Gradually stir in 1 1/2 cups water. Add bouillon cubes. Bring mixture to boil, stirring constantly. Strain over meatballs.
Bake, covered, for 1 hour. Garnish with parsley sprigs. Serve with noodles, if desired. Makes 6 servings.
-- Adapted from "McCall's Introduction to Scandinavian Cooking."
Fish Fillets with Dill
This recipe, from an old, out-of-print cookbook, is typical of Swedish fish recipes: simple, and flavored with dill. In testing, I used flounder fillets, and I brought the water to boil in a glass measuring cup, for convenience.
8 fish fillets
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Butter
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
1/2 cup minced fresh dill
1/4 cup boiling water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper. Butter a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with half the parsley and dill. Place the fish on top of this bed; then add the remaining parsley and dill. Pour boiling water into baking dish and bake fish for 20 minutes, or until it flakes easily when lifted with a fork. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
-- Adapted from "McCall's Introduction to Scandinavian Cooking"
Swedish Apple Cake
This dessert recipe is from a cookbook popular in Sweden today. It calls for basic, readily available ingredients.
2 1/2 cups grated rye or white bread crumbs
1/2 cup butter
4 apples
1/4 cup brown or granulated sugar
Whipped cream
Place bread crumbs in a frying pan with the butter and brown on moderate heat, until the crumbs are crisp. Peel and core the apples. Cut into wedges.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter an oven-proof dish. Put in alternate layers of bread crumbs, apples and sugar. Top layer should be bread crumbs. Bake in 400-degree oven for 20 minutes. Serve directly from the dish with whipped cream. Serves 4.
-- The Best of Swedish Cooking, published by the test kitchen of the Swedish Agricultural Organizations
E-mail this story 
