Fika: The Art of The Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats (19 page)

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here is a common perception among non-Swedes about Stieg Larsson’s
Millennium
series: “All they do is sit around and drink coffee and eat open-face sandwiches!” To Swedes, the obsession with coffee and open-face sandwiches does not seem odd, or even noticeable for that matter. In Sweden a cup of coffee and an open-face sandwich, known in Swedish as a
smörgås
or in the more familiar usage,
macka
, are as common as a cup of tea before bed or drinking water to rehydrate after a workout. That’s the beautiful thing about fika: not only can it be a coffee break, but in a pinch, it can also serve as a quick meal.

The Swedes have a wonderful expression called
mellanmål
; literally translated, it means “the in-between meal.” While in the United States we refer to such things as snack food, a mellanmål is a healthier step above, often consisting of fruit or a hearty sandwich; it is intended to be filling and good for you. For children after school, this often consists of a smörgås and a glass of milk or saft, the Swedish fruit cordial.

There are many types of breads and rolls that fall into the
mellanmål category, some perfect for a lunch sandwich and others the little pick-me-up that you often need in the slow hours of the afternoon. Maybe the most well known of Swedish breads outside Scandinavian geographical boundaries is crispbread. Said to have originated somewhere around AD 500,
knäckebröd
, as it is called in Swedish, is a culinary staple. It comes in a variety of forms, from big circles that are snapped into pieces to precise rectangles. Perfecting the art of baking it can take time, and bakers can spend their entire careers mastering their unique version of knäckebröd.

But knäckebröd is only one of the types of bread that a
smörgås can be made with. There is
Tunnbröd
, the
Swedish Flatbread
, which is rolled up and perfect for taking along as a travel snack;
skorpor
, crisp rolls that are twice baked until they are extra light and dry; and the hearty loaves of dense bread, like rye bread, spiced with tastes like caraway, fennel, and anise that Scandinavian cuisine is known for. It all goes well with extra strong coffee or a big cup of tea, of course.

Making the perfect smörgås is also an art, an experience in pairing flavors and not being afraid to stack a piece of bread high with whatever strikes your imagination. The piece of bread, no matter what kind, is simply a building block for constructing the rest.

But it’s not just the smörgås that can serve as a meal. Swedes also have the
Swedish Pancakes
. Much like in France, the thin version of the pancake is served at lunch or even dinner, as a second course after soup. The thin, crepe-like pancake comes from a time when there was no such thing as an oven; all people had was an iron pan that could be placed over a fire. A commonplace dish in the Swedish kitchen,
the pancake’s close relation is
plättar
, which can be made using the same batter as regular Swedish pancakes, but fried in a special pan that makes seven small pancake rounds.

So whether it’s a sandwich, a pancake, or a round of savory Swedish scones, you might just find yourself once in a while replacing a meal with fika instead.

While you can stick to traditional pairings when building your smörgås, there are no smörgås police out there; you are limited only by your creativity. Pair a layer of cheese with sliced cucumber, bell pepper, or even apple. Add a leaf of lettuce to rye bread slathered with butter and top it off with a slice of salami. Just be sure you start with a good base, be it rye bread, crisp rolls, or even something as simple as a
crispbread cracker
. Here are some of the classics.

•
A meatball
MACKA
, made with halved meatballs on a creamy beet salad, preferably on rye bread.

•
A
SKORPA
with a layer of butter, a medium-hard cheese like Swiss or Jarlsberg, and marmalade.

•
TUNNBRÖD
spread with
leverpastej
, a spreadable liver pâté, topped with sweet and crisp pickled cucumber, and rolled into a wrap.

•
RÄKMACKA
, a shrimp sandwich made by layering lettuce, sliced eggs, mayonnaise, shrimp, and dill on toasted bread.

•
SILLMACKA
, made by placing pickled herring, sour cream, red onion, and chives on dark rye bread.

•
GRAVLAX
, made on dark or light bread, toasted or plain, topped with Swedish cured salmon, mustard sauce, and dill (we also like it on knäckebröd).