Another Update from Johnny

Going off my last post I figured I would update some more differences between Sweden and US.  I will discuss food because I am hungry.

1) There is no grape jelly and you can’t find it.  When I bring it up some Swedes kind of find the thought of eating grape jelly gross.  Only strawberry, raspberry, and lingon (very tart) berry.  Also going on jelly they only put strawberry jelly and whipped cream on their pancakes, no maple syrup and butter.

2) Coffee:  You can’t find any flavor creams ( i.e. French Vanilla).  Also coffee “cream” is just regular milk, not cream like we use in the States.  The "cream" they use is actually heavy whipping cream..

3) Italian Sausage is very different here and we don’t care for it.  Don’t get me wrong the Salami and other sausages are great, but the Italian sausage that you grill, put in red sauce, or on pizza is NOT the same. I can’t put my finger on it, but I do know it is very dense, less fat, and the flavor isn’t there.  I talked to an Italian who owns a pizza shop ( it also turns out he lived in Jersey for a few years) but he told me that Swedes and most Europeans  don’t like all the hot spices in sausage and the US puts too much sugar in the sweet sausage.

4) The butter is awesome…period.  They even have sea salt in one of the brands!

5) BBQ = Grilled foods.  It isn’t BBQed food.  They are just as confused about this as the North is in the states when it comes to calling grilled foods "BBQ".  Also no ribs, just burgers and chicken.  However, they do like their pulled pork, which isn't sold there...figure that?

6) Cheese:  No Velveeta, or canned squeeze cheese…..UGH!  It is also not as common to fina a whole bunch of different shredded cheeses. you can easily find full, half, or quarter wheels…yes wheels.  I felt odd buying a quarter wheel of cheese, but the cheese is very good.

7) Hot dogs are not that good.  To me they are very bland and have no flavor.  It is also very funny when they try to advertise “Chicago Hot Dogs” at the fairs…not even close.  Who puts dehydrated onions on a Chicago hot dog?

8) As for quality control, the food is regulated and has strict guidelines.  The food has to be free range, no hormones, organic, etc.  However, they do allow GMO’s and they are not all up in arms about GMO’s as Americans are.  All in all, because of this even fast food tastes better than the US.  We even tried McDonalds a few times and it was much better than the States.

9) No diced Garlic…I prefer doing myself anyways.

10) Pizza…only thin crust…very very thin crust.

Later---Johnny