Where did Texas' Swedish food culture go?
I asked that question in 2013. How has the answer changed a decade later?
As I unpack the story of my recent trip to Sweden, I wanted to do a little time travel with you back to 2013, where my interest in Sweden and my ancestral heritage really started to take off.
At IKEA, of course.
I was working as a food writer at the Austin American-Statesman at the time, exploring every type of cuisine and food culture I could find in Texas. But Swedish food culture was noticeably absent from my research.
Then I got an invite to IKEA’s midsummer celebration, and I was surprised what I found when I went there.
I hope you enjoy catching up on this piece that laid the groundwork for some things I’m writing about this summer.
To update this story: These days, you can get top-notch kanelbullar and other Swedish baked goods from The Fika Table and Easy Tiger, and Swedes in Austin know that you can get pickled herring at H Mart. Central Market sells salty licorice, but not in the long ropes that I found when I was there last month.
IKEA in Round Rock is hosting their midsummer buffet on June 21, and the local SVEA chapter is hosting one at a private club in Steiner Ranch. The Swedish Association of Elgin and Vicinity, Inc. is planning their annual midsummer event on June 23 at 7 p.m. at the Elgin SPJST Lodge.
There still aren’t any Swedish restaurants in Texas like the very Swedish Al Johnson’s cafe in Door County, Wisconsin or an upscale place like Aska in New York. (A Nordic food hall stand in Houston called Golfstrømmen closed earlier this year.)
It’s interesting to me that in the 11 years since this story published, I’ve traveled as far as Wisconsin and Chicago to explore the bits and pieces of Swedish culture that all those immigrants left all those years ago.
RELATED: Crying with strangers: 48 hours in Andersonville
Kolaches, Kafka and one very old castle (no, not that one)
The next stop on my Scandinavian studies journey will take me to the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, where they have all kinds of classes and activities, some of which are online.
Until then, don’t be surprised if you see me working in the IKEA cafe on these hot summer afternoons.
But I’m not there for the meatballs.
I’ll be there to think about the smörgåsbord I enjoyed when we gathered with our long-lost cousins that fine May day at their house an hour outside Stockholm just a few weeks ago. We ate on many of the foods mentioned in this article as we talked and shared stories that opened an ancestral door that had been closed for 100 years.
I’ll also be there, sipping my free IKEA coffee, thinking about what Lena Larsson called “a home for healthy and happy people.” She’s the journalist and designer I learned about at a museum in Stockholm who shared revolutionary ideas about home design that have influenced every single one of our homes. (Even if we don’t shop at IKEA.)
More on both of these experiences in the coming weeks.
Thanks for all your support on this long and winding road.
Addie
Exploring Swedish heritage at IKEA’s midsummer feast
By Addie Broyles
Originally published July 19, 2013
Even though more than 160,000 Texans claim Swedish descent, their German and Czech counterparts have done a better job at keeping their culture in the public eye, particularly when it comes to food.
Barbecue and kolaches are an easier sell than lutefisk, but when I got an invite to a midsummer smörgåsbord at Ikea last month and immediately thought about meatballs, I realized how little I knew about the food of my ancestors.
First, a little history about Swedes in Texas. We have Swante Swenson, the state’s first Swede and, later, one of its largest landholders, to thank for helping create what became known as the “Swedish pipeline,” a system of bringing thousands of Swedes to Texas for jobs in the mid- to late 1800s.
In fact, so many immigrants came from a small town in southern Sweden called Barkeryd that in 1975, Gov. Dolph Briscoe proclaimed its residents as honorary citizens of Texas.
You can’t go far in Central Texas without finding a relic of these Swedish founders, most often preserved in the names of towns, roads or, most notably, the airport. (A fact to keep in mind next time you fly out of the Austin airport: John August Earl Bergstrom, born in Austin to Swedish parents in 1907, was the first Austinite killed in World War II.)
But despite a long, rich history, places that celebrate Swedish foodways are hard to find. Timothy’s Scandinavian Treats in Austin and European Bistro in Pflugerville have closed in recent years, and though you can get Swedish pancakes at the Original Pancake House on West Parmer Lane, I haven’t been able to pinpoint a single Swedish restaurant in the Lone Star State outside the IKEA cafes in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, which are something of a cultural hub for Swedes and Swedophiles.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Invisible Thread to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.