Fall, Candy, Ducks

In Swedish autumn, the days grow short, the sun setting noticeably earlier by the week. When the sun is up, it's beautiful and clear and bright. When it gets dark, now before 6:00pm, there's little reason to go outside at all. So, I've furthered my investigations into Swedish candy.

Daim is one of my new favorites. It's milk chocolate with bits of toffee crunch inside it. 

Basically, it's the Swedish version of what in Canada is called Skor, and in the US is known as a Heath bar. It's tasty but not revolutionary (Not in a Marxist way at least.) 

Pigall is more interesting, different enough not to warrant any direct comparison. The inside is a light, airy, yet crispy chocolate flavored filling that is reminiscent of a 3 Musketeers in taste but not in texture. The texture is unusual and not uniform, some areas are crispier than others. 

This is known as a "Japp". It is a rather thick chocolate coating with caramel and a fine chocolate flavored nougat. It is essentially a Mars bar/Milky Way (which are essentially the same themselves.) More confusing is that Japp copies the same font and packaging as Mars, and both are sold widely in Sweden. I love Mars bars, but I fail to understand the existence of Milky Way and Japp imposters. 

Now this is a weird one, and lives up to Sweden's international reputation as a producer of disgusting food. Plopp (with three 'p's) is a milk chocolate bar with a salted licorice filling. Imagine if someone replaced the caramel in a Caramilk bar with a salty black tar. That is what this is. It is at once offensive, but intriguing. The licorice filling is strong tasting, but is perhaps balanced by the milk chocolate? I don't know. I once ate salted chocolate chip cookies that were very interesting. This is also interesting, but harsh. Salt and chocolate is a strange flavor, but not destined to failure. The addition of the rather herbal tasting licorice is very typical of the Swedish palate, and I doubt this is sold anywhere that wasn't settled by Vikings. 

But Sweden is more than objectionable chocolate. Sweden is also known for the deep respect they pay to nature.

Here a duck enjoys a bottle of wine and some snus in its natural habitat. 

Ducks have an eclectic taste in beer. Here they enjoy Red Stripe and Carlsberg, domestic brands are not sufficient. 

Here a duck rejects a proffered Abro. Discount brands are frowned upon. 

So that is all I have to say this week on the subjects of fall (pretty), candy (varying in quality), or ducks (silly). 

Food and Festivities

The traditional way to end summer in Sweden is with a kraftor-fest, in English, a crayfish dinner party. I believe summer in Sweden ended long before I arrived in the middle of August, I still wanted to try out the tradition, and had the chance to do so with my old Cornell Swedes (Maria #1, Maria #2, and Erik - Swedes are infamous for uncreative naming.) 

In order to properly enjoy crayfish, one must have themed plates and napkins. The crayfish on the plates are cheerfully gathering dill and lemons to aid you in eating them, while the napkin crayfish is lighting fireworks. The crayfish we consumed were not as lively, but they were tasty. The taste is similar to lobster, but the crayfish are cooked in a dill brine. We also ate shrimp, which come with their heads on here. The shrimp head contains some organs, possibly a stomach/brains. It is very flavorful though.

A large part of the tradition is singing songs and drinking liquor. The songs are all old Swedish drinking songs that come in a song book, with lots of variations that use basic nursery rhyme melodies. After each song you drink some snaps, with is a Swedish spiced liquor. I don't understand the songs, but snaps is nice. 

Also, I discovered a new fruit recently! Physallis, I don't think we had these in North America, but they are pretty common in Sweden, served as a cocktail fruit. It is sweet and tart, like a citrus-y strawberry. (It's hopeless to write about food, it's like dancing about architecture.) But it is exciting to discover a new fruit after I had eaten all the "big ones", it's like seeing a new color. 

I went on a cruise of the Stockholm archipelago recently on one of the few beautiful days this autumn. 

The boat we took was apparently 100 years old, but it was very well preserved. 

We left from downtown Stockholm, where the boat was docked in Ostermalm. This is the poshest section of Sweden. Here are some highly enviable apartments on Strandsgatan ("Beach Street", an optimistic name if there ever was one.)

We passed by a haunted amusement park which looked very Scooby-Doo. 

No children spin in the strawberry-octopus' arms any more, and so he sits by the dock forlornly. 

A large amount of the Stockholm archipelago looks like Canada, more specifically like the Thousand Islands on Lake Ontario. (But the Stockholm archipelago never lent its name to a dressing.) I actually took few pictures of it because I had a "seen-it-already" feeling. 

It is very much autumn in Uppsala now. The leaves are changing and falling (but not as beautifully as in Ithaca.) The days are also getting much shorter. When I arrived here in August, the sun would rise at 5:30am and set just before 9:00pm. Now the sun doesn't rise until at least 6:30am and it sets at 6:00pm. I've still got another 5 hours of daylight to lose though, so I'm trying to enjoy the sun while I can. 

And finally, a treat for all the Daniel Craig fans who have visited my little blog since I mentioned the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie that has been shooting in Uppsala. Here he is for you to enjoy. 

Maybe I enjoy it a little bit too.