Finally, Suovas

I've promised this for a while, so finally. I went to Smaklust a few weekends ago, a large food fair with locally produced food from all over Sweden. I also went to a workshop about suovas, a very special product that's part of the Slow Food Movement. It's from Lapland - the very Northern part of Sweden. Suovas is reindeer meat that's dry-salted and then smoked. Sometimes it's also dried afterwards for a short or long period of time. It's a family tradition, so all suovas is made slightly differently. It's traditionally made to be the perfect snack when you're out herding reindeers. Nowadays, I say it's just great food.

Laps eat a little at a time, and often. Food is not very ceremonial, but a necessity. And out of respect for the animal, all parts are eaten and taken care of, and are made useful. I like that sentiment.

The workshop was led by Piero Sardo who's the president of Slow Food, and he did a great job of guiding us all through the tasting of three different suovas, some lovey pickled chanterelles, a special Laplandish bread (similar to Polar-bread which is sold all over Sweden and in some other countries as well) and we also tried a beautiful wine, Ciliegiolo Sasso Tondo from Emilia-Romagna.

Top row:
Karsten Thurfjell (wine journalist) and Piero Sardo
Suovas
A Kåta, a traditional lappish tent where the suovas is being smoked

Middle row:
pickled chanterelles
more suovas (you can see the three different kinds here - the middle one is dried after smoking, and the third one is smoked for a longer time)
an ostrich egg and ice cream made from ostrich eggs. (Very creamy!)

Bottom row:
Coffee-cheese - a special kind of cheese made to put in your coffee. I know, it sounds gross. It was the first time I tried it and to my great surprise, it wasn't bad at all. It's sort of like a non-salty halloumi, it has the same squak.
Pastry chef Jan Hedh forming a swan out of sugar. I talked to him at a cookbook release party a few days afterwards, and he said that someone had come up to him after the swan-making, and asked him for the recipe. He had replied "two pounds of sugar". Heh.
Dalecarlian horses - but the blow-up kind. And the sign says "don't feed the horses". Cute.