Oh the wonders of travelling.
Two nights ago, after our Ikea lunch feast, I donned my wench gear and headed off for not just a tour of the Old Town in Stockholm (pics above), but for the most interesting restaurant I've dined in, probably ever. I mean, they had Beaver Stew on the menu!!!
The Sixth Barrel offers "an evening out in Medieval Stockholm", with all the food being based on authentic medieval Swedish recipes dating from 1435. The whole thing was AMAZING. From the cave-like restaurant, lit only by candles (making it a bit tricky to read menus, and causing an OH&S risk to the waiter's sleeve!), to the historically dressed waiters, and then of course there's the food. OH MY GOODNESS. The food.
One would expect this to be a tourist restaurant - it's got TACKY TOURIST TRAP written all over it. It sooooooooooooooooooooo wasn't!!!! We were the only table speaking English, all the others were Swedish, and the food was....well, it was....UNBELIEVABLE.
How lucky I was to share a banquet with Tuna Man - we went for the menu that started with Sage Soup - this was a cold, gritty soup, bitter, salty and soooooo full of flavour...intense sage pounded with bread I think, tangy, and alive, with the added treat of a marinated boiled egg. I loved it.
While we were eating our soup, we were helping out Tuna Man's Wife with her amazingly tasty Swedish Plate, oh my goodness, the Moose Pate...ohhhhhhhhhhh divine, and the creamy cream cheese and horseradish, not to mention my first ever pickled herring...all breaths were held as I tasted the herring pickled with red onion...DIVINEEEEEEEEEEE. Oh my god, perhaps I was a Viking in a previous life - I am bloody loving this Swedish food!!!
Our main platters arrived. Ummmmm...can you see them there above??? Well let me walk you through it! The first platter there is Wild Boar with Fresh Berries on top and Sausage with Sauerkraut and the little dishes in the middle have a magical Pea Puree, divine Home-made Mustard, and the most sublime clovey, cinnamony Cooked Apple stuff, OH MYYYYYYYYYYY...the whole thing just blew me away. We dived in with great gusto.
Then the next platter arrived. There are no words. I mean the Trout with Herbs was fantastic, but the Moose Meatballs...the Moose Meatballs. Sigh. The Moose Meatballs. I'm still dreaming about them, with the most delicious sauce I've ever eaten, a Chanterelle cream sauce. Chanterelles are found all over the forest at the moment, and this sauce, made with local fresh Chanterelles...well...let's just say I actually put my finger in the bowl to wipe it clean and would have licked it clean if I could have got my tongue in there! I'm not kidding.
Amongst this medieval gourmet orgy, I actually learnt a few things. Forks weren't used at this time...the forks were deemed the "devil's tools" and you would never put that in your mouth, so you ate with a spoon, knife and your fingers! And there were no serviettes (or napkins for you yanks) during this time, they didn't come till much later, so one would wipe their hands on the piece of fabric down the middle of the table! NICE! And that's what we did at the Sixth Barrel. Niceeeeeee!! The other cool thing I learnt was that before pasta was eaten up in Scandanavia, they had this food called Loisyn, which is like lasagna sheets with a tasty creamy sauce...yummy!
Ok ok, I know I'm starting to rave. Let me just get through dessert. Our pear and cheese was yum, but the highlight was TMW's dessert. She had the traditional Saffron Cake from Gotland. It's like a rice pudding saffrony thick pancake that's served with the most delicious Almond Cream and warm Cloudberry Jam. We all tucked in, and I absolutely loved it. It was gluggy, but gritty with the sweetness of the almond cream and the bang of the Cloudberry Jam. Really good.
Now all of this fine food was washed down with something I have read a lot about, but had never tasted before. Mead. It's THE medieval drink, so of course these guys have quite an extensive Mead menu! I tried the Meed Beer, which was so earthy, with a strong scent of honey, but tasted too yeasty for me. I liked the Sweet Mead (surprise surprise), it was like an earthy light Port, I really got into it. Now, Mead is a brewed alcoholic drink made from just yeast, honey, water and seasoning. Cool stuff.
So, sportsfans. There you have it. Before I came to Sweden I was warned that the food here was pretty awful. Well, I have to say, I'm finding the food here quirky, full of incredible flavour, and almost magical. Yep, I must have been a viking!
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