Autumn Slow Food Travel in Sweden

One of the best ways to make friends in any nation is to experience their local food culture, sharing good food and conversations. As a member of SF for two decades what better way than to connect with our local Convivium –with whom we are also members! We happened to be over when Annette, Leader of SF Scania, had a day of food travel planned so we all met up and off we went.

Skåne is famous for its big skies sweeping over flat fertile landscape, fringed with beaches and harbours - both land and sea providing rich pickings for some exceptional chefs and restaurants. Home to many artists and writers over the centuries including Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, also famous for her children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson, the lad who flew northwards on a goose. Henning Mankell’s Wallander also roamed Skåne - but thankfully no murders on this trip! Red kites regularly swoop overhead and come early summer the peninsula is home to early potatoes - like our Ayrshire’s - whilst across Skåne the fields blossom a vivid yellow with rapeseed. Autumn brings a landscape dotted with orange pumpkins - pumpa – and sugar beet piled high by the country roadsides awaiting collection. And so the seasons go round and round…

Bosse hails from farther north in Sweden but had been farming in Skåne for a while when we met (through Annette!). These days we have a smallholding in Småland but our Skånsk friends are but a short drive and it’s always fun to catch up.

First stop, the goats cheese dairy Glada Geten [Happy Goats] https://gladageten.se where Henrik and Victoria also rear pigs and grow vegetables and flowers, for sale at local markets and in their lovely farm shop. Having just finished writing my feature for the next edition of Farming Scotland on goats, also cooking and photographing a recipe with goat, I am definitely having a goat-themed October! Henrik told tales of the boisterous herd and their adventures. One was even on the evening news when Getrud was stolen and the police found her in a vehicle in Stockholm! They make a younger snow-white goats cheese and a matured one with a mix of fjällko milk (a traditional mountain cow) from a neighbouring farm. Along with their delicious ost, Victoria

makes her award-winning Victoria’s ostkaka, a traditional creamy custard set dessert (pictured). We dived into wedges topped with homemade jam and cream then shopped before clambering into our cars onwards to our next destination…

…Vånga Must https://www.instagram.com/vanga_must/ an organic apple grower whose home has a panoramic view over the deep blue waters of Ivösjön. With acres of orchards and many special

varieties including the famous Danish Ingrid-Marie and the local Aroma, he presses them individually to create a range of juices. He was in fine form having just returned from an event where they won a Gold and Silver Award for their products and their son, with a bakery in Karlskrona, had also won a prize! As the car boots filled our stomachs started to rumble as we headed for a late lunch at…

…Gårdskocken https://gardskocken.se where Marcus Paci warmly welcomed us to a sensational lunch. He talked with such passion about sourcing ingredients and running the restaurant with his wife Rebecka. Prior to this, he was a sea chef and farmer and so appreciates how the raw materials he works with are produced. His pumpkin soup was the best I’ve ever tasted and the pig for the mouth-watering honeyed pork belly platter was

from a neighbour’s farm. The duck for our smoked sausage was shot on the hunting estate that supplies all his game and where the restaurant is located in one of the converted farm buildings. Honey is from their own apiaries; eggs from their chickens and the coffee is a bespoke blend from Kafferosteriet in Limhamn, his in-laws’ business. I highly recommend Gårdskocken for fabulous flavours and value for money – food tourism at its best and sincere thanks to Annette for organising.