00:00 Hi, I'm Zarla Arsson, and today I'm going to be showing you
00:03 some of my favourite things from Sweden
00:06 and what makes me proud to be a Swede.
00:08 I'm going to show you some snacks, some foods,
00:11 talk to you about places you can visit,
00:13 and show you how to celebrate Midsummer like a true Swede.
00:17 Let's go!
00:18 MIDSUMMER PARTY
00:29 So first off, we have a classic fika,
00:32 which is basically the time where you don't eat the real meals.
00:37 No breakfast, lunch or dinner.
00:38 It's all that you snack on between those meals.
00:42 And usually it's some sort of pastry,
00:46 or, you know, like this is a kanelbullar.
00:48 And the Swedish cinnamon buns, which this is,
00:51 are quite different than the American ones,
00:53 because we have this pärlsocker,
00:55 which is these big, like, sugar things.
00:58 Instead of that frosting, I've never had an American cinnamon bun.
01:01 I think they look so scary.
01:03 OK, OK.
01:10 What I like is the cardamom bun.
01:16 They're very yummy.
01:18 And then this is the semla, which is very seasonal.
01:21 You would only have this in the month of February.
01:25 I'm not a huge fan of it, because inside of it, you see,
01:30 this is all like cream, and that's all very nice and that, and a bun.
01:35 So this is kind of like marzipan.
01:39 But it's weird, because I really like marzipan,
01:41 but I don't like this.
01:43 But they're like cousins, but this is the cousin
01:46 that I don't like very much.
01:47 So I'm gonna do this.
01:49 You can put this in a bowl with warm milk.
01:51 Like, you would eat it as a soup.
01:53 You put it in the bowl with the warm milk.
01:56 Then we're over to this little, very exciting thing.
02:00 When I grew up, I was only allowed to have it on Saturdays,
02:03 because Saturdays is the candy day.
02:05 Every Saturday, I got to pick like ten pieces of candy.
02:08 And it's like a pick and mix, and it's in every single store in Sweden.
02:11 And I am such a big licorice fan,
02:14 so I'm so happy to see one of my absolute favorites ever,
02:18 which is the Saltpatron.
02:19 Oh! Sorry, I'm gonna pick it up.
02:22 Oh!
02:23 Whoo! OK.
02:25 Saltpatron.
02:26 This one is just... Oh, it's so good. This one's so good.
02:30 Also, this one is amazing.
02:32 Gryptonite. This one's my favorite.
02:34 It's like raspberry and licorice.
02:36 Also, this one's really good.
02:38 Hexvrol, salty.
02:40 These ones are absolutely the worst candy you could ever have.
02:44 This is some old people candy.
02:45 But you know what? That's the beauty of it.
02:47 You can pick and mix whatever you like.
02:49 This one, I haven't seen this in so long.
02:52 This is gum, and I'm gonna save that.
02:54 I'm actually gonna bring this home.
02:56 Thank you, Gandalf. Thank you so much.
02:59 This one, you could also have for fika.
03:01 You would have this on some bread with a lot of butter.
03:06 Maybe some of this, which is knäckebröd, the hard bread.
03:11 It's like a cream smoked fish roe.
03:14 And I would understand that you might not love this
03:18 if you didn't grow up on it.
03:21 But to me, this is just like...
03:23 the most amazing flavor.
03:26 It's giving, like, umami to me.
03:29 I am way more of a salty, savory type of person
03:34 than I am with the sweet stuff.
03:37 Like, even the sweets, I would, like, enjoy a licorice.
03:41 Nice. Nice.
03:44 A lot of people know Swedish food from the food court at IKEA,
03:52 and that is pretty accurate.
03:54 As you know, we have the Swedish meatballs here,
03:56 but we also have some other things to try.
03:58 And let's start with that.
03:59 So, on this little plate,
04:01 this actually would look like a typical midsummer...
04:05 I don't know what it is about the Swedish holidays.
04:07 Maybe it's the same for you guys,
04:09 but we do the exact same menu on every single holiday.
04:12 Midsummer, Christmas, Easter.
04:14 Like, it does not matter what kind of holiday.
04:16 We have the same menu. Period.
04:19 On this one right here, I see we got the pickled herring.
04:22 I would have it with some sour cream, chives, perhaps.
04:27 It's like being at home.
04:32 This is my favorite.
04:34 I would have it just like this.
04:35 Tostkalen is also very easy to make at home.
04:37 Just shrimp, some mayo, dill, onion.
04:40 It's like the Swedes.
04:46 We love a good pickled something.
04:50 Pickled fish, it doesn't sound very nice.
04:53 We don't have a lot of seasoning.
04:54 So you do let the ingredients or the fish or, you know, whatever,
04:59 kind of be the star of the show.
05:04 Staple.
05:06 Staple in Swedish culture.
05:08 Swedish cuisine.
05:10 Swedish survival, honestly.
05:12 The star.
05:18 The queen.
05:19 The Swedish dish, if you will.
05:23 She's simple, she's elegant, she's classy.
05:27 Four things.
05:29 Meatball, mashed potato, pickled cucumber,
05:34 and lingonberries.
05:35 And with a yummy, yummy brown sauce for the meatballs.
05:37 This combination, I don't know who came up with it.
05:40 I would say a genius.
05:42 It's just like, it just hits.
05:44 It just hits.
05:49 Oh, my God. This is like being out for a long time.
05:53 You're in the mountains, it's windy, it's freezing.
05:56 And then you see it.
05:57 You see a cottage.
05:59 And in that cottage, this is what's waiting for you.
06:04 Also part of Swedish tradition,
06:05 we just get shit-faced on every holiday.
06:08 And this glass is very big.
06:09 But what's nice about it is that you don't need to drink the whole thing.
06:12 It is not like a shot.
06:13 Sometimes, with the people you're around,
06:17 you say, "Okay, let's just have half."
06:19 And then you would sing a song about drinking half of it,
06:23 because that is part of the fun.
06:24 I'm going to sing a song for you guys.
06:26 I'm going to do my dad's favourite.
06:30 When we came home from the fjärden, we took a nap.
06:33 The clothes were wet, but the sock was dry.
06:37 And then we thought, "It's best to put on a sweater."
06:40 Because the sock dries faster than the clothes.
06:45 You know what? That was really nice.
06:55 That was really nice.
06:57 I don't know if it's because I'm grown now, I'm like 26.
07:00 I can handle the liquor!
07:02 But this was actually really nice.
07:04 So whoever wants to have a taste of Swedish akvavit...
07:08 Shout out to Opie Andersson.
07:11 It's midsummer time. Can't you see?
07:18 I'm sitting here with a beautiful flower crown,
07:20 which is something that you would wear on midsummer.
07:23 My favourite holiday is the midsummer.
07:26 My favourite holiday in Sweden.
07:28 It is celebrated in the middle of summer,
07:30 usually on the very lightest day and night of the year.
07:34 And we dance around this pole, which looks like this.
07:40 And then it's almost like a cross.
07:43 And then it hangs two round things on the pole that lays horizontally.
07:49 And what does that look like? That is a penis, ladies and gents.
07:54 It's what we do. We dance around the green penis.
07:58 And we thank the penis for impregnating the earth
08:01 and making it green and lush.
08:04 And we dance like frogs around it.
08:06 Sometimes like Mors lilla ulle,
08:09 which is a little guy who cries out for his mom.
08:12 Like every other holiday, there's a lot of alcohol involved.
08:15 Midsummer is probably the holiday where people would go the most...
08:20 They would go in for it. People just look beautiful.
08:24 People are off work and can just celebrate the fact that
08:27 at least we have hopefully two more months of warmth and sunlight.
08:33 So as you can see here, this is Sweden, this is Norway,
08:41 this is Finland, this is Denmark, this is Scandinavia.
08:45 Finland is actually not a part of Scandinavia,
08:48 but a part of the Nordic.
08:50 So I would start my journey here from Stockholm.
08:54 If it's summer, down south. Winter, up north.
08:58 So I would take my car and I would go...
09:03 All the way down to here, Österlen.
09:06 It's absolutely stunning.
09:08 White beaches, beautiful cliffs.
09:11 When you are down south here, you could also go to Malmö,
09:14 which is the third biggest city in Sweden.
09:17 And from Malmö, you can take a train that takes about 20 minutes.
09:20 You can go over to Copenhagen and spend the day there,
09:24 have a little beer, just chill in Denmark,
09:27 and then you go right back and just enjoy your evening here.
09:30 But south of Sweden, it's just absolutely gorgeous in the summertime.
09:35 Wintertime, I would do the opposite. I would go up north to go skiing.
09:40 Here with Norway, they have the fjords and a lot of mountains.
09:44 And up here, you most likely are going to see the northern lights.
09:48 And there's a lot of reindeers up here.
09:50 Maybe Rudolf is from here somewhere.
09:53 The last show that I did, actually, was here in Gulleftio.
09:57 And it's really, really fun to come here. It's an amazing crowd.
10:00 You could go on a sled with some dogs.
10:06 It's fucking cold, though, but it's so stunning.
10:10 And up here, they have a really funny accent, I think,
10:13 just like they do down south here.
10:15 Also summertime, I like to go here to Gotland,
10:19 which is a super old island. A lot of rich history over here.
10:24 I would say it takes about four hours with a ferry.
10:27 Limestone city, baby. A lot of limestone over here.
10:31 And that does for beautiful places to swim.
10:35 Sweden in general, we have so many islands.
10:38 We have about 220,000 islands.
10:40 If you hear about Greece having a lot of islands,
10:45 you should come here to the Stockholm Archipelago,
10:47 which is just so, so stunning.
10:50 My favourite things in Stockholm would be... I like Djurgården a lot.
10:54 It's in Stockholm city. So Stockholm is small, right?
10:57 You can walk basically anywhere and you're always close to water.
11:01 But Djurgården is just so beautiful because it's in the city,
11:04 but it's like super green.
11:06 And not a lot of people live there.
11:08 I think like the king's friends live there and people like that.
11:13 But it's just very nice.
11:15 And we also have this thing in Sweden called Allemandsrätten,
11:17 which means that you can basically camp wherever you want.
11:20 There's no such thing as like a private owned area.
11:23 Even though it is, you are still allowed to be there.
11:26 You're still allowed to exist and do your thing
11:29 unless it's on someone's like backyard.
11:32 The old town I really love.
11:33 I really, really love the Swedish Archipelago.
11:36 And like I said, there's hundreds and thousands of islands.
11:38 So wherever island you go to, I bet it's lovely.
11:41 Thank you so much for watching and I hope to see you soon in Sweden.
11:45 Bye!
11:47 (upbeat music)
11:49 [MUSIC]
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