The Wayfaring Path

Trolls

I love landing in a new environment, with wide horizons, and a willingness to give anything a crack. I turned up to Stockholm with only the barest of expectations. I knew we’d be catching up with Linda’s funtime relatives, and childhood love of Norse mythology helped to amp up my expectations. 

As we climbed the hill towards our AirBnB I had the sensation that I was walking within a childhood fable. There’s chickens in our AirBnB yard, sweet fallen under laden trees, and that evening there’s lamps in every window of every home.

Walking under autumn-toned trees, scrabbling over moss edged granite shelves, and peering into the dark, fecund spaces between gnarly boulders, Trolls suddenly made sense. The landscape demands them. 

Elevating curiosity

When I first started travelling, I had a pretty narrow band of interests, and some pretty fixed ideas. I had a pre-determined idea of what I wanted from any new environment. As a result, I didn’t always find opportunities which weren’t clearly connected to drinking, dragons or throwing myself off the edge of things. 

Thank fuck I’ve evolved. I almost have the reverse perspective, I love being anywhere which tells ME what I should try, and how I might grow. As a result, if I end my first day somewhere with a huge list of questions, I know I’m in for a good time. 

What has this got to do with my first couple of weeks in Sweden? Well, the first day in Stockholm was constantly peppered with words like ‘whoooah’, and ‘what theeeee?’ and ‘how the fuuuuck?’ and a long list of questions. The funnest thing about all these questions, is that finding answers often leads to…well, these ‘spirals’ of experience. In trying to answer any one of my questions, I often end up on a journey of discovery, which takes me in unexpected directions.

I reckon this is best explained through an example. Food is a well trodden pathway into a new place’s culture and community, so let’s start there.

Spiral one: From ‘mushroom eyes’ to daily fika

I’m a morning person, and I love coffee, so my first task, wherever I am in the world, is finding a very early Flat White. Usually there’s time to kill, and so I start a ‘spiraling’ walk out from my AirBnB. That first few hours somewhere, they’re all just soaking up all the shit, right? The scents of the gutters, the furtiveness of the alley dwellers, the sounds of the first birds of the day. 

As I set off from our annex on the hillside, it was with the newfound knowledge that today was ‘National Cinnamon Bun Day’… Fuck yeah! I found an Espresso House, a Nordic cafe chain, and after a couple of exchanges in Swinglish, I was ho-ing into a buttery sugary layers of pastry, and hitting the unexpected but very welcome flavour of cardamom. 

That first bun had cost me NZ$10, an eye-watering price which I’d been semi-prepared for, after reading that Swedes had been protesting grocery prices. So now the mission was on, to find cheaper alternatives. 

As I trawled the aisles of the local grocery store, I found bargain price buns, labelled kanelbullar and kardemumabullar (cinnamon and cardamom buns). Cut-price is frequently a path to disappointment, but I chose a couple of each, and it turns out even budget buns here are tastier than anything from a kiwi supermarket. As I’m licking sugar off my fingers, I realise I need more cardamom in my life. I also hazard a guess that bullar means bun in Swedish. The spiral’s begun.

I love food, and supermarket shopping is usually a highlight of my first day somewhere. That first shopping trip though, made it clear that prices would prove challenging. Most things were as expensive as back in New Zealand.

Still. I find that with anything creative, sometimes having to work within constraints is helpful. I needed to think and shop like a local. I googled ‘student meals in Stockholm,’ and bought stacks of pot noodles and pickled fish, and a big jar of Bear Berry Jam. That night I made my first ever mackerel bolognese. Don’t judge me. Then, a very great thing happened. 

We spent our first weekend in Sweden with Linda’s fantastic Swedish family, headed by Henri and Ulf. Three useful things happened in just half a day: fika, mushroom hunting and a hypermarket. 

Fika is a simple yet fantastic habit (possibly invented by Swedish bakeries) of an enforced mid-afternoon break for coffee and a sweet treat. Henri showed us what it was all about with a variety of sugar-packed morsels, and we were instantly hooked. 

Henri and Ulf built their home in a Swedish forest next to a Tyresta National Park. One of the great benefits of a forest-next-door, is the early-Autumn mushroom season. As we set off on a family fungi hunt, we were warned that after a short time we’d get ‘mushroom eyes’. Sure enough, once Linda and I found our first clusters of peach-coloured kanterrales (chanterelles) we were locked into the draw of their golden hue. We quickly lost sight of the others as we duck-walked, hands running between golden leaves, pawing at the moss-covered earth. We suddenly understood every fairy tale that involved getting lost in the woods after dark. Once we emerged (reluctantly) from the woods, we were taught how to prep and cook all these fungi, and left with so much earthy bounty. The next two days soups and casseroles were phenomenal.

On the way home, Henri and Ulf did us the great favour of taking us to an enormous ICA (a Swedish supermarket brand). This is one of Ulf’s happy places, he knows the people, the aisles, the produce, and the best ways to use (I shit you not) squeezy tubes of caviar paste. We found that pre-prepared things are much more expensive than base ingredients, and really, that’s the way things should be, right? 

The spirals continue to grow. We are up to…nine different fika treats to date. One packet of heavily pickled herring lasts me two weeks. Bernaise sauce is cheaper than hollandaise, more flavoursome, and comes in a range of flavours. Mushroom spotting leads me to local forests, and down less trodden paths (ones the families haven’t picked clean…). 

These ‘spirals’ also feed one another: ordering and buying food is the most frequent opportunity I have for trying to speak Swedish, and that helps me grow my understanding of Swedish concepts and values. My desire to learn about anything around Norse mythology saw Ulf lead us into a meadery named after Odin, and that led to the best mead we’ve ever tasked (apologies Tamara, yours is a firm second).

Perhaps even more importantly: in a place where I know very little of the culture, or language, an interest in both food and vikings has been a great ice-breaker with Henri, Ulf and their family. As a result we’re all going to a Viking Tavern for my birthday meal. Spirals, spirals, spirals.

Food curiosity hasn’t necessarily led me to my most world-shifting revelations in Sweden, the spiral it’s led me along has opened up conversations, prompted new recipe ideas, and inspired ideas and understanding. Squeezy tubes of caviar though? The jury’s still out…