Deep Thoughts on Sweden

Being a bit cittied out by Copenhagen, I tried a more rural approach in Sweden. I only spent four days with two families. One day was on the west coast south of Gothenburg, and another in the boonies near Avika (pop. 15,000), 40 km from Norway.

Gothenburg sunset
Farmland
I didn't realize until now how closely I tie my experience of a country with a few people. These families refreshed me each in their way, as did being by the ocean, the fields, forests, and lakes.

Sweden gave me time to reflect about one of the two things that stand between me and the developing world in particular, but also Sweden. That is meat.

It's the creative meat products. Midnight snack isn't scones and cream, rather every imaginable mush, patty, and jam made from meat and its cousins. My disgust is not a product of ranch-kid snobbery. I think everyone else in my family would probably eat whatever pink spread was offered to them, but I can't.

But what if I were asked to eat a sheep's eyeball? Vital organs of a small mammal? Any version of Rocky Mountain Oysters? Something where the bites squeak and gush at the same time? This is why I've decided to only visit places that worship cows. That's not true, but I worry about it. I really do.

While I'm at it, worms is the other one. It's the prospect of seeing them, having them, being offered them to eat by the chief of the tribe to his shame if I don't that I cannot abide. The We Hate Worms Club celebrated its first decade this year, and still going strong. With Hate! But I didn't encounter any worms in Sweden (slugs in Denmark, yes).

The only other thing I wish to say about Sweden regards its moose. I learned this from the second family I stayed with, particularly the dad/husband. He was a kind, quiet farmer. Well-traveled, but a quiet farmer, nonetheless. The sort you would not want to have bring your unsubstantial underwear out to you that you'd dropped on the bathroom floor. But that's another story. The moose:

• They are sometimes called "elk," but it still means moose
• They also come in albino, slightly smaller
• 20-25 people from a community will hunt them collectively, filling a quota of six adults and six calves, the meat to be divided evenly
• Moose eat apples which grow in abundance in Sweden
• It is not looked upon favorably to shoot a moose in your front yard eating your apples, not very sportsmanlike
• If the apples have gone bad and a moose eats them anyway, it can become drunk and belligerent (just kidding, aggressive)
• No one hangs moose heads on the wall
  

fruit from trees, the envy of moose