Try the World Box: Sweden

The Sweden box was a bit incoherent. It had plenty of treats, but not enough ingredients for a Swedish meal. The recipe card included recipes for salmon and dill toasts, Swedish dumplings and ham & cheese toasts. There was also a pointer to a Swedish meatball recipe. The closest thing to an ingredient for these dishes in the box were the crackers and lingonberry jelly to garnish the dumplings.




We did make the toasts, and dumplings. They were good, but not enough for a meal. We augmented it with a Swedish shrimp sandwich called räkmacka that I learned about on a business trip to Sweden. Räkmacka is a pile of tiny shrimp with a lump of mayo and egg on the side. People mix as much of the egg and mayo as they want into each bite. Together these dishes made a mini Swedish smorgasbord.

Sweden also has a tradition of fika, which is a mid-day sweet snack with coffee. Swedes will drop everything in the middle of the workday: "Time for fika." The box included cookies, licorice, fudge and coffee in support of fika. Swedes like strong coffee, and have barely heard of decaf.


The box included:

Mörsjö Deli gourmet crisps - A thick salty cracker, that was good. Our package was a little bit crunched up.

Nordic Rosehip Fudge - This very soft fudge was flavored more like penuche. It was very good, but we didn't taste any rose flavors.

Tillmans Elderflower saft syrup - This was the star of the box. A little of this in a glass of seltzer made for a deliciously refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail.

Gille Double Chocolate Crisps - This was an interestingly elaborate cookie with two cookie layers enrobed in chocolate sandwiched with some caramel.

Löfbergs Kharisma Coffee - Good strong Swedish coffee.

Hafi Lingonberry Preserves - Lingonberry jelly just yells Sweden to me. It's sort of sweet and sour like a mix of strawberry and cranberry.

Lakritsfabriken Sweet Licorice - A good, strong licorice with a slightly salty flavor. This was a softer version of the center of a Good & Plenty.

Liss Ellas Sweet and Hot Mustard - This was a decent hot and sweet mustard with big mustard grains.

Penuche from the Rockport Fudgery

Gail and I took a day-trip to Rockport today. We had a delightful time eating lunch on an outdoor terrace overlooking the water, but the food was uninspiring. So, we hoped we could find a good sweet treat to satisfy our hearts. Gail's joy was penuche from the Rockport Fudgery. The penuche had a smooth, firm texture and melted in my mouth with gooey caramel flavors. It's all gone now.

This is the classic seaside fudge and candy shop, and they make their fudge right on the premises. We know this for sure because we were fortunate enough to watch as they were cooling and texturing a batch of fudge. The candy maker scrapes the hot fudge off the edge of the big copper pot, occasionally lifting the big spoon in the air and pouring it back into the pot.

He let me have a go at it. He said to work the fudge like rowing a boat with an oar. The fudge was thick and  much harder to row than water. The candy maker said he works each batch for about 15 minutes before pouring it in pans to set up.