Sweden’s national dish – or is it ?

Sweden could well be flavour of the future, with its superlative Gripen multirole fighter amongst those being evaluated by the IAF, when presumably Indian personnel would be seconded to this Scandinavian nation for conversion training. And certainly they would be offered Swedish fare, including the signature ‘national dish’, being meat balls. Imagine then Sweden’s consternation when it was recently ‘discovered’ that this is actually based on a recipe that King Charles XII brought home from Turkey in the early 18th century. The Turks rejoiced even as the Swedes were dismayed.

But then, according to an Indian food czar, the samosa is actually from Turkey too.