Previews From the Book/Pocket

Things are going faster and we have started working with the book we’ll give to you. Benne and Leo are have started working with the layout and me and Nils have started writing some texts about recepies, traditions and festivals. We will publish some samples from the book/pocket now and then, and here are a few.

Jonas has written this text about Vegetable Soup:

This is just one classic Swedish meal that we will publish in the book/pocket.

Vegetable Soup

Recipie of Vegetable Soup (= Grönsakssoppa in Swedish)

1. Tend the root vegetables and the vegetables. Divide a cauliflower in bouquets and cut the remaining pieces in strips.
2. Heat up the shortening on medium heating in a big saucepan. Mill some yellow onions and some root vegetables in some minutes. Pour on some water.
3. Let it boil and add the cauliflower. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes under a lid until the root vegetables have relented.
4. Wisp some flour with milk and mix it down in the soup. Throw down some sweet peas. Let it simmer for some minutes.
5. Then Season the soup with some salt and pepper. Garnish with abundant sliced parsley.

Nils wrote about some traditions we have here in Sweden:

Hey! I’m going to tell you about two of our Swedish traditions (You will read about more in the pocket that you will get when you arrive here.)

Maypole

The first one is called midsommar (midsummer), and it’s celebrated very close to the day of the year when it is the summer solstice. Witch means it’s the day when the sun is on its northernmost extreme, and as a result of that it becomes the longest day of the year, and the shortest night of the year on the northern area of the equator. At the northern pole it’s even said to be no night at all!

The Christians of the Swedish church celebrated the midsummer due the birth of St. John the Baptist, but the people decided to celebrate this day just for having fun with your family and friends.

Here in Sweden we celebrate midsummer by gathering friends and relatives and dancing around a maypole and eating together.

It looks funny when we dance and there are many different dances, one of the most famous dances in Sweden are called The Little Frogs (= Små Grodorna in Swedish). Basically we jump around like frogs around the maypole to the music xD!

The food you can find on the table are for example pickled herring (= inlagd sill in Swedish, wich is a fish that we eat often at midsummer), fresh potatoes, meatballs and sausages and for desert strawberries and ice cream.

There are also some myths around the midsummer night, for example you shouldn’t swim outside in a lake or a sea cause then Näcken, the evil spirit of the water,  might drag you down! (But its just a myth ._. )

It’s also said that for the girls if you pick bouquets of seven or nine different flowers and then on your way home walk across 9 Roundpole fences and then put the flowers under your pillow and fall asleep without saying anyting, then you will see your future man in the dream. 

Lucia

We also celebrate a thing called Lucia. It is Lucia on the 13^th of December every year, on Lucia you are supposed to be awake the whole night and not sleeping anything because it’s supposed to be a dangerous night when evil spirits and trolls are out.

We celebrate it by making candles in the night and by selecting a Lucia (a girl who has a crown with candles on her head). She and the other girls are dressed up in long white robes and the other girls are holding a candle in their hands. They walk around and sing Christmas carols/songs.

Among the younger children boys also dress up in white robes and with an ice cream shaped cone on their head with stars on it.

We also bake Lucia buns that are made of saffron to make them yellow (they are yummy!).

Well this week has been a effective week – we have started working with the book/pocket just like we have planed to do. So thats good. Next week we will continue working with the book/pocket and write som more about festivals, traditions, recipies, meals. We will hopefully finnish the book/pocket next week, or maybe in two weeks. We will do a great work on it and make it look good. 

//Jonas & Nils