These days, crayfish are a popular menu item in Sweden all year long -- you can get them already peeled in salads, mixed with mayonnaise on toast, etc. You can also buy frozen ones from the supermarket -- those mostly come from Turkey and China. In August, kräftskiva-style whole crayfish can be purchased from any supermarket seafood counter. For the party, we were instructed to get fresh Swedish crawfish, which are cooked in salt and copious amounts of dill.
The mudbugs are eaten cold, cracked open with hands and teeth. Every guest was given a skinny little crayfish knife to dig meat out of the slim claws. By the end of the night, you've got cuts all over your hands, but the general idea is to get drunk enough to stop noticing.
Fixings included white toast with butter and caraway cheese, as well as a creamy västerbottenpaj, a sort of quiche made with Västerbotten cheese, a sharp, hard cheese from the north of Sweden. Joy also got this AMAZING strawberry meringue cake from Lux Dessert and Chocolate -- feather-light fluff on the thinnest layer of sponge with a strawberry puree stripe down the middle. It is what My Little Pony angels eat in heaven.
Besides the crayfish, the other star of the show is the snaps, the Swedish national liquor which I have totally come to develop a taste for. It's an aquavit flavored with caraway, fennel and anise flavors. I think O.P. may have elbowed Hallands Fläder out as my favorite snaps.
Crayfish parties, and generally all Swedish drinking festivities like Midsummer and sour herring parties, offer opportunities to break out Sweden's numerous drinking songs, which all seem to be about drinking and lack of women. I haven't been here long enough to make commentary about the drinking habits of Swedes. Actually, I haven't been drinking with Swedes often enough to make any of my sweeping generalizations. But I will say that the whole singing and drinking thing is one of the most charming parts of Swedish culture. The only song I sort of know is Helan Går, but Joy and Otto printed out a little handbook with about 30 different tunes.
Crayfish are a lot of work for a little meat. And every time you sing a song, you drink some snaps. We didn't sing all 30 songs, but we got through a great deal of them. Small amount of protein + large amount of snaps = 12 very quickly drunk people.
- Naked wood-fired sauna followed by skinny dipping in the cold sea.
- At around 1 a.m., we had hot dogs and chips for vikning, which is the Swedish word for post-drinking snacks. Useful meal, useful word.
- I did my first ever keg stand over the mini-Heineken keg. My frat ho fantasy has finally been realized.
I am totally having a kräftskiva in Brooklyn next summer. PAR-TAY!
I had to google a keg stand but now I know for sure that you had a good time...that´s hilarious! More keg stands to the people!!
You should have tried the havskräfta as well. More meat, less of a struggle. There's an ongoing battle between those who prefer the red crayfish to those preferring the pink havskräfta (as I do). Really don't know if there is an English word to make the distiction between the two...
Preferences generally depend on what part of Sweden you're from: Westcoast=havskräfta, eastcoast/north=crayfish.
Love your blog. I wish my sister had done a blog like yours when she moved to Chicago! Her husband commented on the tube food thing as well when he got here :D
//Martina - resident of Göteborg (i.e westcoast)
Hi - You mentioned Hallandsfläder in your blog. Do you know of anywhere in the US where one can buy it? I have only tried it once and it was excellent!
Sadly, I don't know where you can get Hallandsfläder. I have only had Danish Aalborg's and O.P. here. Good luck!
Ganda, you can buy the Hallandsk Flader spices from scandinavianstuff.com and make your own as I did.