SCRAP THE BBQ AND THROW A SWEDISH MIDSUMMER

HERE’S CHEF NIKLAS EKSTEDT — AT WHOSE FAMED STOCKHOLM RESTAURANT, EKSTEDT, EVERYTHING IS COOKED IN, ON, OR AROUND FIRE — TO TELL YOU HOW:

“Midsummer is a festivity that goes way back in time, long before Christianity. It is held on the weekend closest to the summer solstice and this year it will be Saturday, 23 June. It’s a little bit debated exactly

where it originates, but it’s definitely a celebration of flowers and fertility and summertime. It’s a late, long lunch, outside, with music, drink and food. Christmas is for family, but Midsummer is for friends. You definitely have more hangovers after Midsummer.”

(See left and right for what you’ll need.)

HERRING

“Always in Sweden when there’s a celebration there’s herring. We don’t have much of an imagination. Depending on where in Scandinavia you are, you have a different version of pickled herring: in Stockholm it’s clear with onion and pepper, and in Northern Sweden it’s more fermented and you eat it with flatbread and raw onions and sour cream. I like it all.”

GRAVADLAX

“You don’t forget gravadlax: cured salmon. That’s very important.”

NEW POTATOES

“Boiled. With dill.”

MEAT

“Next you have grilled food, usually cooked outside on a coal barbecue. You save up and get something special, maybe some kind of beef or veal. At my house, we usually do lamb — racks, or half a lamb butchered up into pieces. We flavour it with fresh herbs, fry it in oil in a cast iron pan and put the pan into a fire of birch wood.”

ASPARAGUS

“We grill the spears over the fire, raw.”

STRAWBERRIES

“At Midsummer, all Swedes want potatoes,

strawberries and asparagus, but they’re not always there in time.

It’s tabloid news if the strawberries can make it. Traditionally, it’s strawberries and cream, but we do mixed sugars: basil, mint and pepper.”

DRINK

“You think?! We’re Swedes. When I was growing up, it was beer and aquavit. Nowadays, you see young people drinking summer wines — Gewürztraminer and rosé — but I don’t think we could get my dad to drink rosé. I do a little bit of both: schnapps with the herring, then beer, then a glass of red wine.”

SONG

“At Midsummer, there’s a lot of singing. A lot of

singing. The songs are mostly about spring, and alcohol: “empty the

glass”, or “drink it straight up”, that kind of

thing. Then there’s a really strange one about

dancing like a frog. It goes back to taking the

piss out of the French, I think. I love Midsummer

but I think it is one of those traditions where foreigners are like, ‘What the fuck?’ I even feel it myself sometimes.”

– Ekstedt, Humlegårdsgatan 17,

Stockholm; ekstedt.nu