Today, singing sensation Zara Larsson joins Condé Nast Traveler to share everything that makes her proud to be Swedish. From their incredible pastries like kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) and semla, to celebrating midsummer in style, Zara spills her best tips for making the most of a trip to Sweden.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm Zarla Arsson, and today I'm going to be showing you
00:03 some of my favourite things from Sweden
00:06 and what makes me proud to be a Swede.
00:08 I'm going to show you some snacks, some foods,
00:11 talk to you about places you can visit,
00:13 and show you how to celebrate Midsummer like a true Swede.
00:17 Let's go!
00:18 MIDSUMMER PARTY
00:29 So first off, we have a classic fika,
00:32 which is basically the time where you don't eat the real meals.
00:37 No breakfast, lunch or dinner.
00:38 It's all that you snack on between those meals.
00:42 And usually it's some sort of pastry,
00:46 or, you know, like this is a kanelbullar.
00:48 And the Swedish cinnamon buns, which this is,
00:51 are quite different than the American ones,
00:53 because we have this pärlsocker,
00:55 which is these big, like, sugar things.
00:58 Instead of that frosting, I've never had an American cinnamon bun.
01:01 I think they look so scary.
01:03 OK, OK.
01:10 What I like is the cardamom bun.
01:16 They're very yummy.
01:18 And then this is the semla, which is very seasonal.
01:21 You would only have this in the month of February.
01:25 I'm not a huge fan of it, because inside of it, you see,
01:30 this is all like cream, and that's all very nice and that, and a bun.
01:35 So this is kind of like marzipan.
01:39 But it's weird, because I really like marzipan,
01:41 but I don't like this.
01:43 But they're like cousins, but this is the cousin
01:46 that I don't like very much.
01:47 So I'm gonna do this.
01:49 You can put this in a bowl with warm milk.
01:51 Like, you would eat it as a soup.
01:53 You put it in the bowl with the warm milk.
01:56 Then we're over to this little, very exciting thing.
02:00 When I grew up, I was only allowed to have it on Saturdays,
02:03 because Saturdays is the candy day.
02:05 Every Saturday, I got to pick like ten pieces of candy.
02:08 And it's like a pick and mix, and it's in every single store in Sweden.
02:11 And I am such a big licorice fan,
02:14 so I'm so happy to see one of my absolute favorites ever,
02:18 which is the Saltpatron.
02:19 Oh! Sorry, I'm gonna pick it up.
02:22 Oh!
02:23 Whoo! OK.
02:25 Saltpatron.
02:26 This one is just... Oh, it's so good. This one's so good.
02:30 Also, this one is amazing.
02:32 Gryptonite. This one's my favorite.
02:34 It's like raspberry and licorice.
02:36 Also, this one's really good.
02:38 Hexvrol, salty.
02:40 These ones are absolutely the worst candy you could ever have.
02:44 This is some old people candy.
02:45 But you know what? That's the beauty of it.
02:47 You can pick and mix whatever you like.
02:49 This one, I haven't seen this in so long.
02:52 This is gum, and I'm gonna save that.
02:54 I'm actually gonna bring this home.
02:56 Thank you, Gandalf. Thank you so much.
02:59 This one, you could also have for fika.
03:01 You would have this on some bread with a lot of butter.
03:06 Maybe some of this, which is knäckebröd, the hard bread.
03:11 It's like a cream smoked fish roe.
03:14 And I would understand that you might not love this
03:18 if you didn't grow up on it.
03:21 But to me, this is just like...
03:23 the most amazing flavor.
03:26 It's giving, like, umami to me.
03:29 I am way more of a salty, savory type of person
03:34 than I am with the sweet stuff.
03:37 Like, even the sweets, I would, like, enjoy a licorice.
03:41 Nice. Nice.
03:44 A lot of people know Swedish food from the food court at IKEA,
03:52 and that is pretty accurate.
03:54 As you know, we have the Swedish meatballs here,
03:56 but we also have some other things to try.
03:58 And let's start with that.
03:59 So, on this little plate,
04:01 this actually would look like a typical midsummer...
04:05 I don't know what it is about the Swedish holidays.
04:07 Maybe it's the same for you guys,
04:09 but we do the exact same menu on every single holiday.
04:12 Midsummer, Christmas, Easter.
04:14 Like, it does not matter what kind of holiday.
04:16 We have the same menu. Period.
04:19 On this one right here, I see we got the pickled herring.
04:22 I would have it with some sour cream, chives, perhaps.
04:27 It's like being at home.
04:32 This is my favorite.
04:34 I would have it just like this.
04:35 Tostkalen is also very easy to make at home.
04:37 Just shrimp, some mayo, dill, onion.
04:40 It's like the Swedes.
04:46 We love a good pickled something.
04:50 Pickled fish, it doesn't sound very nice.
04:53 We don't have a lot of seasoning.
04:54 So you do let the ingredients or the fish or, you know, whatever,
04:59 kind of be the star of the show.
05:04 Staple.
05:06 Staple in Swedish culture.
05:08 Swedish cuisine.
05:10 Swedish survival, honestly.
05:12 The star.
05:18 The queen.
05:19 The Swedish dish, if you will.
05:23 She's simple, she's elegant, she's classy.
05:27 Four things.
05:29 Meatball, mashed potato, pickled cucumber,
05:34 and lingonberries.
05:35 And with a yummy, yummy brown sauce for the meatballs.
05:37 This combination, I don't know who came up with it.
05:40 I would say a genius.
05:42 It's just like, it just hits.
05:44 It just hits.
05:49 Oh, my God. This is like being out for a long time.
05:53 You're in the mountains, it's windy, it's freezing.
05:56 And then you see it.
05:57 You see a cottage.
05:59 And in that cottage, this is what's waiting for you.
06:04 Also part of Swedish tradition,
06:05 we just get shit-faced on every holiday.
06:08 And this glass is very big.
06:09 But what's nice about it is that you don't need to drink the whole thing.
06:12 It is not like a shot.
06:13 Sometimes, with the people you're around,
06:17 you say, "Okay, let's just have half."
06:19 And then you would sing a song about drinking half of it,
06:23 because that is part of the fun.
06:24 I'm going to sing a song for you guys.
06:26 I'm going to do my dad's favourite.
06:30 When we came home from the fjärden, we took a nap.
06:33 The clothes were wet, but the sock was dry.
06:37 And then we thought, "It's best to put on a sweater."
06:40 Because the sock dries faster than the clothes.
06:45 You know what? That was really nice.
06:55 That was really nice.
06:57 I don't know if it's because I'm grown now, I'm like 26.
07:00 I can handle the liquor!
07:02 But this was actually really nice.
07:04 So whoever wants to have a taste of Swedish akvavit...
07:08 Shout out to Opie Andersson.
07:11 It's midsummer time. Can't you see?
07:18 I'm sitting here with a beautiful flower crown,
07:20 which is something that you would wear on midsummer.
07:23 My favourite holiday is the midsummer.
07:26 My favourite holiday in Sweden.
07:28 It is celebrated in the middle of summer,
07:30 usually on the very lightest day and night of the year.
07:34 And we dance around this pole, which looks like this.
07:40 And then it's almost like a cross.
07:43 And then it hangs two round things on the pole that lays horizontally.
07:49 And what does that look like? That is a penis, ladies and gents.
07:54 It's what we do. We dance around the green penis.
07:58 And we thank the penis for impregnating the earth
08:01 and making it green and lush.
08:04 And we dance like frogs around it.
08:06 Sometimes like Mors lilla ulle,
08:09 which is a little guy who cries out for his mom.
08:12 Like every other holiday, there's a lot of alcohol involved.
08:15 Midsummer is probably the holiday where people would go the most...
08:20 They would go in for it. People just look beautiful.
08:24 People are off work and can just celebrate the fact that
08:27 at least we have hopefully two more months of warmth and sunlight.
08:33 So as you can see here, this is Sweden, this is Norway,
08:41 this is Finland, this is Denmark, this is Scandinavia.
08:45 Finland is actually not a part of Scandinavia,
08:48 but a part of the Nordic.
08:50 So I would start my journey here from Stockholm.
08:54 If it's summer, down south. Winter, up north.
08:58 So I would take my car and I would go...
09:03 All the way down to here, Österlen.
09:06 It's absolutely stunning.
09:08 White beaches, beautiful cliffs.
09:11 When you are down south here, you could also go to Malmö,
09:14 which is the third biggest city in Sweden.
09:17 And from Malmö, you can take a train that takes about 20 minutes.
09:20 You can go over to Copenhagen and spend the day there,
09:24 have a little beer, just chill in Denmark,
09:27 and then you go right back and just enjoy your evening here.
09:30 But south of Sweden, it's just absolutely gorgeous in the summertime.
09:35 Wintertime, I would do the opposite. I would go up north to go skiing.
09:40 Here with Norway, they have the fjords and a lot of mountains.
09:44 And up here, you most likely are going to see the northern lights.
09:48 And there's a lot of reindeers up here.
09:50 Maybe Rudolf is from here somewhere.
09:53 The last show that I did, actually, was here in Gulleftio.
09:57 And it's really, really fun to come here. It's an amazing crowd.
10:00 You could go on a sled with some dogs.
10:06 It's fucking cold, though, but it's so stunning.
10:10 And up here, they have a really funny accent, I think,
10:13 just like they do down south here.
10:15 Also summertime, I like to go here to Gotland,
10:19 which is a super old island. A lot of rich history over here.
10:24 I would say it takes about four hours with a ferry.
10:27 Limestone city, baby. A lot of limestone over here.
10:31 And that does for beautiful places to swim.
10:35 Sweden in general, we have so many islands.
10:38 We have about 220,000 islands.
10:40 If you hear about Greece having a lot of islands,
10:45 you should come here to the Stockholm Archipelago,
10:47 which is just so, so stunning.
10:50 My favourite things in Stockholm would be... I like Djurgården a lot.
10:54 It's in Stockholm city. So Stockholm is small, right?
10:57 You can walk basically anywhere and you're always close to water.
11:01 But Djurgården is just so beautiful because it's in the city,
11:04 but it's like super green.
11:06 And not a lot of people live there.
11:08 I think like the king's friends live there and people like that.
11:13 But it's just very nice.
11:15 And we also have this thing in Sweden called Allemandsrätten,
11:17 which means that you can basically camp wherever you want.
11:20 There's no such thing as like a private owned area.
11:23 Even though it is, you are still allowed to be there.
11:26 You're still allowed to exist and do your thing
11:29 unless it's on someone's like backyard.
11:32 The old town I really love.
11:33 I really, really love the Swedish Archipelago.
11:36 And like I said, there's hundreds and thousands of islands.
11:38 So wherever island you go to, I bet it's lovely.
11:41 Thank you so much for watching and I hope to see you soon in Sweden.
11:45 Bye!
11:47 (upbeat music)
11:49 [MUSIC]