Where is the Sweden food culture going and how is it similar or different to Canada's food culture?

Question:

* could you also add your source/link for your answer if you have one.

thanks,

Answer:

Sorry I don't know much of Canadian food, but I'll tell you a bit about the Swedish food culture. Hopefully you can find out the similarities and differences on your own. I'm Swedish by the way.

First of all, most of the food we eat nowadays is originating in other countries. I don't know any country where the local food has been put aside so much for other cultures. A Japanese girl once asked me for tips about some restaurant in Stockholm (Swedish capital), where she could eat traditional Swedish food. It was really hard to find one for her, there is barely any restaurant serving Swedish food in this city these days. Strange huh? In the end it came down to maybe three. A few more if you count the restaurants with "Swedish food and a modern touch and some inspiration from France" and similar.

Does that mean that we never eat Swedish food? Well no, but strangely enough Swedish food is either very low status or very high status. Those restaurants I mentioned belong to the most expensive restaurants around. At the same time, Swedish food is often considered to be child food these days. You will find those kid menus around, and that's where you find the Swedish meatballs and so on. Italian, French and food from different Asian countries are popular.

Swedish food is a little more common at homes. But then again it's often product of "Oh I'm so tired today, I'll make something simple". And even here it's often considered food for children. Then the days come when we are going to celebrate something, such as Midsummer Eve or Chistmas Eve. Then it's a tradition to eat Swedish food. On midsummer it's usually picked herring, potatoes, sour cream with dill and some other things. While at Christmas there is a big julbord (a Christmas version of a smörgåsbord) with lots of Swedish food on it. Funny enough people can long for these meals a lot, yet they don't eat these things the rest of the year, at least very rarely. Makes me clueless, even though I'm the same!

So in short we have a very strange view on our food here.