As anyone who’s ever eaten at the cafe in an Ikea store knows, meatballs are a cornerstone of modern Swedish cuisine. Once we arrived in Stockholm and started paying attention, we realized that köttbuller are ubiquitous. Most restaurants serve them. Huge bags of meatballs filled the ready-to-heat coolers in the supermarkets, and if that weren’t enough, they were also sold frozen. Not reading Swedish, we were never sure what form of meat was involved, though Google Translate did suggest any or all of the favorite Swedish meats: beef, pork, lamb, elk, moose. Sometimes even chicken. What we did understand was that meatballs in gravy is the Swedish equivalent of American mac ‘n’ cheese — the ultimate national comfort food.
Airbnb has changed the way we travel. We like to go for a block of time and rent an apartment where we can imagine what it’s like to live in a place. That includes cooking, of course. But since we don’t want to spend all day in prep, we explore the convenience foods that local cooks use. In Stockholm, meatballs certainly fit the bill.
As we puzzled over the meatball section in the supermarket across the street, a Swedish shopper took pity on us. She pointed to one particular brand and shook her head. Then she pointed to another and nodded her head. That was good enough for us. We bought a package of the meatballs that received her imprimatur.
There’s a reason meatballs are a convenience food
Once we got them back to our marvelously high-tech kitchen, we wondered how we should prepare them. The meatballs languished in our fridge for the better part of a week until we went to the farmers market. From reading English translations on Swedish menus, we now knew that meatballs were usually served with lingonberry jam. At the market, we decided to buy homemade jam to elevate our factory-made meatballs. Jam in hand, we asked the honey and jam lady how to prepare them.
‶Oh, they are already browned so you simply heat them up in brown sauce,″ she explained. We hesitated. ‶You buy the brunsås in a package, add water, and heat it up.″ Mystery solved.
Traditionally, she explained, the meatballs should be served with boiled small potatoes and maybe a lightly pickled cucumber salad. And, of course, they need a big dollop of lingonberry jam. Omitting the jam would be like serving Thanksgiving turkey without cranberry sauce.
We bought new potatoes and a cuke from an adjoining table to mix up a quick pickle of lemon juice, salt, and a pinch of sugar for chopped cucumber and grated carrot. A return trip to the Coop supermarket netted a 50-cent package of brunsås in the dried soups and sauces aisle. We waited to serve the meatballs on a rainy night when we couldn’t grill on our deck. With steamed new potatoes, cucumber salad, and a generous dollop of lingonberry jam, they hit the spot.
We did feel a little bad about using packaged brown sauce mix — until we met a man who was going to visit his sister in Denver. We asked what she missed from home, what she wanted him to bring.
Brown sauce packets, of course. Our pangs of guilt evaporated.