A typical Swedish julbord. Photo by Kimberly Andersson.
You can’t go out for lunch or dinner this time of year without encountering a julbord, literally translated as a Christmas table or smorgasbord. The julbord is a huge Christmas tradition and it involves eating tremendous amounts of food from a buffet. The first time we went to one, Roger initiated us on the proper julbord eating process. When I first moved here, I was not a big fan of many of the foreign to me foods. But now I’ve grown to enjoy many of them.
Here’s my basic overview of the process. Start with the cold dishes such as herring, pickled eggs, boiled potatoes, gravlax and eel. Often, a shot of snaps will accompany the herring, no doubt to help you wash it down.Then move on to more cold dishes, this time the Christmas ham with mustard, soft and hard breads, pickled cucumbers, beetroot salad and cheeses. If you can handle it – and you have to, “it’s tradition,” Roger told me – now you go for the third eating round and the warm dishes. Here you’ll find Swedish meatballs, prinskorv or small sausages, ribs, a potato casserole called Jansson’s temptation that has thin sticks of potatoes mixed with cream, onion and anchovies. There can also be quiche, warm salmon, cabbage and much, much more.
By this point in the process, I’m typically feeling ill and unable to walk up to the buffet. But I do usually manage to get up one more time to see what desserts there are – rice pudding, lussekattor and cakes are all possibilities. Obviously with this amount of food, it’s all about pacing yourself. Eat too much on the cold dish end and you’ll never make it to the warm dishes and desserts. And you have to get to the desserts!
Julbords are big business for Swedish restaurants as they are typically pretty pricey. Ads for julbords first started appearing in October for the julbords which start at the end of November and go until mid January. This year, I’ve only been to one thus far. But there’s still time for me to catch another before they end…
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