Food & Drink
Fatten Up Your Fettisdagen With Semla
It’s not quite beads and King Cake like New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebrations, but Fettisdagen, the Swedish name for Fat Tuesday, is still a huge deal. Especially when it comes food. Like many Fat Tuesday celebrations around the world, Sweden celebrates the day before Ash Wednesday and the season of fasting of Lent with delicious bread and sweet pastries.
Sweden’s Fettisdagen dish of the day is semla – or semlor if you’re eating more than one of them (which you probably will). Semla is a small almond-paste filmed roll topped with whipped cream. We’ve talked about it a few times here, so in case you’ve forgotten here are a few little refreshers:
- Swe-Dishes: Swedish Freak’s Semla Recipe for Fettisdagen: In case you’re having a hard time finding semlor or you simply want to try your own hand at it, we gave you a semla recipe, courtesy of Hilary St. Johnn from SwedishFreak.com
- Swe-dishes: Semla for Fettisdagen: Another quick rundown on semla, and some of its other iterations.
- Meet Semmelmannen, The Man In Search Of The Perfect Semla: Semla can be a bit tricky to find in the United States, but in Sweden, this man tried to find the best of the best that Stockholm had to offer.
Just because semla isn’t in most grocery stores in the U.S. doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find. If you live in one of America’s major cities, you’re in luck as there’s pretty much a spot in or near them.
For example, if you live in San Francisco, you can hit Plaj restaurant, a cozy restaurant where American and Scandinavian cuisine come together. If you’re in Los Angeles, you may want to check out Berolina Bakery. If you’re a New Yorker? You have options, with places like Fika NYC and Konditori both having multiple locations in the Big Apple. Down in West Palm Beach? Get your fill at Johan’s Joe.
