A Swedish Christmas Eve in America

Spending Christmas in the States this year I asked my husband if he wanted a Swedish or American Christmas. He responded without hesitation -A Swedish Christmas! That meant that I cooked and served up the traditional Julbord, the Swedish Christmas Smorgasbord, at Christmas Eve. Since there is just to much food involved for two persons to even come close to finish, I invited our good friends and neighbors to join us.

I thought I would share a photo with you of what the Julbord looked like this year.

The Julbord is a buffet with traditional Swedish food like pickled English cucumber, sausage, deviled eggs, cold smoked salmon with dilled creme fraiche, oven baked omelet with mushroom sauce, Swedish meatballs, mustard glazed ham, creamed spinach, potato au gratin (usually you julienne the potato and add anchovies to make Janson's Temptation, but I knew that would be a slightly odd one for our guests so I opted for a simpler, more familiar version, a potato au gratin with thyme, Parmesan and Gruyere), bread and crispbread, salami, Herrgards cheese, and instead of the pickled beets I did a slight update by serving roasted beets over arugula with Chevre. A few really traditional dishes like pickled herring, red cabbage salad, liver sausage, and our Christmas bread, Vortbrod, were missing at my table. They are all very hard to find here, and not all of them a favorite, so we did without.

For dessert we had Ris a la Malta with strawberry sauce. This one and only acceptable dessert for Christmas Eve is a rice porridge sweetened with whipped cream, confectioners sugar, vanilla and orange segments.

With the meal I served white and red wine, a variety of Christmas brews, and the infamous Aquavit, the traditional Swedish snaps that is accompanied by a song or two...

Our friends had never experienced the Julbord before but assured me that everything was delicious. I know that I felt like I was home in Sweden for a couple of hours Christmas Eve...

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday and enjoyed it as much as I did!


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