Sunday, December 4, 2016 Sunday evening after the English service in the cathedral the congregation had a typical Swedish Christmas dinner. Here's some of what's on the menu from front to back - -rye crisp bread with Edamer cheese (from Holland) and butter to make the cheese stick to the bread (you could use glue, but it doesn't taste good and most likely will make you sick!) -Vörtbread (the dark bread, made with beer and molasses - see http://accidentalepicurean.com/2011/12/tis-the-season-for-christmas-bread-swedish-vortbrod-recipe , if you'd like to try it. Just don't drink the beer or you'll never get through the recipe!) - Janssons frestelse (Jansson's temptation), thin potato pieces in an egg and milk mix with anshjovis, done in the oven - Lingon berry sauce (yum, yum!), available almost all year round, but extra good with the Janssons temptation - under the aluminum foil - skinned cooked potatoes (skinned, must be more than naked! No wonder they're hiding!) - meat balls, and to their right, small sausages - salad - on the two raised round serving trays is Christmas ham with mustard dressing (you can't have naked ham now, could you?) - at the far end is a plate with half eggs and a bowl with sauce Missing are - - press sylta (a block of diced cooked veal placed under pressure in a refrigerator or out in the snow - the gelatin causes it to form a solid block - VERY good in my opinion, not to mention T.Rex's love of it! You slice it! - kalvsylta - cooked and ground veal placed in a container in the fridge or out in the snow. Another T.Rex favorite, and mine, too! You slice it. - kok korv - a 2 inch thick white sausage with ground pork, spices, fat, etc.. The composition varies from region to region. - dopp i grytan - when the sausage has been cooked, the water with fat, etc. is used to dip the Vörtbread into (dopp = dip, grytan = pot). This is a very old custom, when there was poverty and famine, even the water from the cooked sausage was eaten by absorbing it in the bread. NOTHING went to waste. - Julmust - Christmas drink (non-alcoholic), tastes somewhat like Coca-Cola, but better. Plenty fizz, plenty big burps! Plenty laughs! Much of the food on the Christmas table existed only at Christmas. With no refrigerators it was important to eat as much as possible so nothing was wasted or allowed to spoil. My mother was Swedish and insisted on keeping the traditions. Considering all the food here, you can imagine how much work she had and how long she spent in the kitchen. Of course I and my brother tried to help. Today I but ready-made and in small quantities, or I wind up having too much in the fridge, considering how much is on the table in the photo! ENJOY! But don't bust a gut! The hospital only has a skeleton crew on Christmas eve and day!