CFAN 3528

Exterior of the Östermalms Saluhall market. Today we started off with a tour of  Östermalms Saluhall  indoor food hall. While our tour guide was a little late, we were still able to see the market before it got too busy. We had the chance to go up to the balconies at the top of the market to see the layout of the whole market and the decorations along the ceiling and walls. I really loved this market because there was so much history behind it, but sadly they are now grappling with how they can continue to keep the market open during tourist off-seasons. The market used to be primarily made up of over 100 individual stalls where vendors could sell their fresh fish and produce to people and they could leave when they used up their stock. The inside of the market has preserved a lot of the original architecture for the stalls, but the decorations along the walls have been redone and restored. Our guide was talking about how the vendors have started to have restaurants and c...

One of the buildings on the KTH Royal Institute of Technology campus. After the talks we saw today I am considering doing a master's degree at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology , which would make me yet another one of Hal's students that have moved to Europe since being in his class... Jokes aside and regardless of if that happens or not, what I loved about class today was that I got to see a college with a strong program in the intersection of what I am interested in. I've been able to study food science and computer science at the U of M, but I haven't seen those combined in a focused way outside of the research I do at the U. KTH has a dedicated research group that is looking at food security and resilience, and they specifically bring in data visualization as an important aspect of their research and methodology. Talking to producers while on this trip has continued to hone my interest in the human side of agriculture and the politics that influence agricultural...

Sign at the entrance to Rosendals Trädgård Today we visited  Rosendals Trädgård  and got to tour their grounds and eat lunch in their orchard. This visit was interesting to me (as every activity as been), but it has continued to be intriguing because we got to hear how they have worked as an organic garden. This whole trip I have been focusing on organic farming processes and the efforts that the producers we visit have put into being sustainable. I loved that we were able to see how the gardens create compost from the material in the gardens that they prune and recovery throughout the year. I've been a part of an engineering project where we designed a composting system, so this was somewhat familiar to me, but it was at a much larger scale than anything I've seen before. We haven't been able to see much of the composting that the other farms and gardens we've visited have had, so it was cool to see how they have divided their composting into many different small bins ...

Today we did a hike with Green Trails  and had a fika in the woods around a campfire. You can see on the left the pot of coffee we brewed over the fire. We also had rolled pieces of bread with cinnamon, sugar, and butter that we toasted on the grate. This was a meaningful experience: we all got to work together to light the fire and could share a cup of coffee and talk in a beautiful forest. Our tour guides talked about how important it is to just spend time with people you care about and take an intentional coffee, or fika, break. I think the intentionality is such a key part of the experience; I feel like in America people will grab coffee but won't have it be an intentional break from what they are doing because they will drink it as they work or commute. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, but it was interesting to hear from the guides about how prominent fikas are in Swedish culture. Pouring the coffee out of the pot with a tree branch as the coffee filter also made i...

Today we did a cruise around the Stockholm Archipelago on the Stromma Brunch Cruise . This cruise was interesting because like the welcome dinner we had, it showcased many traditional Swedish foods at the brunch buffet. Pictured here is a plate of food from the buffet including pickled herring, pasta salad with herring, potato salad with herring, and Swedish meatballs along with bread and some salami and cheese. As you can probably tell, there were a lot of dishes that had pickled or smoked herring in them. Pickled herring is a common Swedish dish and there were many more dishes that had it than I was able to eat while on the boat. What was also interesting to me was the fact that the buffet also had falafels, couscous salad, vegetarian egg rolls, barbecue short-ribs, and chicken wings. It was a strange to see all of these different cuisines mixed together in one buffet, but once again I think it shows that globalization and immigration have moved Swedish cuisine away from an entirely...

Our welcome dinner in Stockholm was at Restaurang Kvarnen : a historically significant Swedish restaurant in Stockholm that has served as a spot for Swedish home cooking since 1908. Like many of the other restaurants that we have been to in Scandinavia, a elderflower based drink was featured on the drink menu. Elderflower is common in the Northern Hemisphere and is used in drinks across Europe. The main feature of the meal was the Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, gravy, and mashed potatoes. These meatballs are an iconic fixture in Sweden and it was a fitting start to our stay here. I thought it was interesting to see the difference between the central dishes in Denmark and Sweden. In Denmark, smørrebrød gave restaurants the ability to plate a piece of bread with a variety of toppings depending on the season and availability of ingredients. It was easy for smørrebrød to become a part of Danish fine dining because it could be made delicate and elaborate. The Swedish meatballs, in c...