„U wrót Laponii” – ROBERT MAKŁOWICZ SZWECJA odc.242

„U wrót Laponii” – ROBERT MAKŁOWICZ SZWECJA odc.242

The Swedish Embassy in Warsaw is our expedition partner. We’ve been thrust far north, my dears. We’re in Sweden. This is the Baltic Sea. This is the Gulf of Bothnia, but it ends very close to here. We’re in a geographical region called Nordland, and this region is administratively called Västerbotten. We’re in a place known as the Gateway to Lapland. It’s not Lapland yet, but it begins very close to here. And it’s a wonderful place. We’ll be staying in a town called Skellefteå, about 50 minutes away, and it will also be featured. All of this will be the focus of many of our episodes, because it’s beautiful and worth sharing. It’s a beautiful day, at least for now. It’s hard to say the sun has risen. It’s just higher, because it’s practically never set here, but weather aside, it’s wonderful so far; we’ll see what happens next. It doesn’t really matter. It’s important for us to realize now where every culinary story begins. What did people pray for, and still pray for, in all languages? For the availability of bread. Our daily bread, and that’s precisely why we’re here in a small village near Skelleftia. We’re here to see a traditional, tiny, artisanal, local bakery. This is where we are. We have everything we need here. We have a beautiful wood-fired oven, and above all, we have two women who know their craft. Women who are currently baking something called mjukkaka. It’s a type of flatbread. A kind of flatbread. We’re seeing the women in action. Namely, Mrs. Fanny and Mrs. Susanne. Can I help a little? Yes, of course. What can I do? Look, ladies, these are prepared discs of dough. Yeast dough. Mixed flour, rye and wheat. And now these special rolls. What can I do? Using a spatula. Now sprinkle some flour on top. Okay. Okay. Enough? Perfect. Okay. Now you have to roll it out. This way? And then this way? Yes. First the one with the stripes. Okay. Roll it out to about 20 centimeters. In one direction only? No, in every direction. Okay. Rotating. Rotation. Just like that. Now we turn the dough over. This way? Or just… Just like that. Okay. Okay, you want a little flour there. Okay. Then you just need to lightly shape the dough with the rolling pin. Okay. Okay. Not too much. And then you take this one and maybe start from here. And go all the way to the end. See, like this. Firmly. And you have to do it really firmly to make holes in the dough. Okay. Lift the rolling pin. And then the other way too, like a cross. I’m brutally strong now. Great. Right? Yes. Then transfer it to a tray and turn it upside down. Okay. Just like that? Fine. Now upside down. And now we leave it. Just like that. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, this is the shape of a flatbread. We’ll be baking it and eating it fresh, but it’s the basis for something that allowed people here to survive during the harsh winter months. When fresh bread was unavailable. When you lived in some secluded place, cut off from the world by snowdrifts, tons of snow, and wildlife, because this can also be dried after baking, and that’s how the famous crisp bread is created. We’ll show you how it’s ready. How long does it need to bake in the oven? About 2-3 minutes. So, it’ll be very quick. It’s like… so you need to have your hands ready and be very ready. Like pizza. What’s the temperature? I’d say 500 degrees Celsius. Yes, very similar . Very similar. Okay, we’ll watch it to the end, okay? Yes, we’ll watch it. Thank you. And then we’ll eat. Okay, that’s the best news. Is it ready to eat? Yes, but first we have to clean it. So we always clean it very thoroughly, like we’re doing now. Why? To make it beautiful? No, it’s because you don’t want to eat this flour, because raw flour is unpleasant. The bread is beautiful without any cleaning. Then you cut it in half with a knife, like this. And now it’s ready to eat. Ready to eat, ready to eat with… With butter, of course, salted butter with extra salt. Salted butter with extra salt. A little butter? A lot. A lot. Great. Right? A good portion? Oh yes, oh yes. And the butter is melting because the bread is fresh out of the oven. Of course it is. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, it wasn’t polite of me to pick it up first, but it looks beautiful. Yes, yes. Let’s talk a little about spices. Here are spices for bread, for bread dough. Among the traditional spices, we have caraway seeds, fennel seeds, and anise. We roast them, crush them, and then add them to the dough. But only a little; they don’t dominate here. No, they just have a slight aroma. Sometimes they’re more spicy, sometimes less. But you have to try it with cheese too. Local? Yes, 20 minutes from Burträsk. I’ll put it on top. Yes. Sorry, I’ll do it first, like this. And a general question. We have coffee. We have cinnamon rolls. Yes, kanelbulle. Kanelbulle. Does that mean it’s part of fika? Yes, we’re actually having fika right now. We have fika. Kanelbulle, also known as cinnamon roll, is the most typical fika. Of course, everyone knows it’s part of fika. Coffee and kanelbulle with cinnamon. But that’s also part of fika. That’s fika too. Fika isn’t really what you’re going for. You need a rest. You need to be with friends, with family, take a break, and enjoy each other’s company. Of course, you need to eat something and drink coffee. How many fik are okay in a day? As many as you want. With this bread, with this butter, with this cheese, will 10 fik a day be okay? No problem. Welcome to Sweden. Ladies, thank you so much. This was a beautiful moment on our trip, because bread is the most important thing in the human diet. And this bread isn’t just very local. It’s not just beautiful, it’s very, very tasty. Made with passion, made with love, and I can feel it. Thank you. Thank you. And let me tell you something else: the ladies bake this bread because they love it. They’re not professional bread makers. They simply announce on Facebook that they’re baking today. They can bake several hundred loaves of this kind a day. And then people from Facebook sign up, come, and take it. This is passion. This is love. And you can feel it. While you’re here, don’t forget to come here. It’s called Bjuröklubb and it’s a wonderful coastal nature reserve. It’s here that you can clearly see the difference between our Baltic Sea and the Swedish Baltic Sea. I’m not talking about the sea itself. I’m not talking about the shape of its coastline. Here we have wide, sandy beaches, and here we have exactly that: rocks, a skerry coast. Lots of small, rocky islands. Well, they’re there somewhere. And here we have the Gulf of Bothnia. If we sailed in that direction, we’d not far from the end of that bay. There’s Finland, and beyond that, Russia, but here it’s predictable. And beautiful northern Sweden. Islets, a skerry coast. Bjuröklubb. Behind me is an extremely important place from the perspective of the history of local navigation. Namely, the lighthouse. Of course, signals have been given to sailors since ancient times. In Hanseatic times, such high spots were chosen , on some hill, elevation, or rock. And a live fire was lit there. In the 19th century, a lighthouse was built here, originally fueled by rapeseed oil. Just like the lighthouse in Niechorze. Then the fuel was changed to kerosene, and finally electricity arrived. And so is this lighthouse. Next door is the former residence of the lighthouse keeper and his family. He lived here. Today, it’s a seasonal café. So, the purpose of this building has changed, but the view hasn’t. That beautiful view hasn’t changed, and the surrounding nature hasn’t changed. I’ll be honest, I needed Sweden already. I simply missed it. Sweden, with its orderliness, its predictability, its beauty of northern nature. You just miss it. My stay here was so funny. I was eighteen then. A high school trip. And back then, every penny counted. Sweden was almost unaffordable for us, so we were looking for places to stay for free. And friends of one of our parents had friends in Sweden who said, “Oh yes, we have an apartment, and we won’t be home then.” And how will we get there? There will be a large group of us. That’s okay, you’ll all fit. You can sleep in a row. We can. We just won’t be there. We’ll just give you the code to the front door. It’s a small four-story tenement building. The door will be unlocked. And that’s what happened. So we punched in the code and went upstairs. The apartment was unlocked, empty, but we realized, well, two hours later, that our host, according to our knowledge, was supposed to be a jazz double bassist. No double bass anywhere. And records, too, because we immediately went to get records. Only Abba records, popular music, no jazz. We checked our correspondence. Paper correspondence, because there was no other correspondence back then. And it turned out, my God, we were in a strange apartment. One floor down. Someone else’s apartment. Oh, fear. They’ll arrest us. What will happen? We quickly covered all our tracks. We went upstairs. And there it was. Also an empty apartment. With a double bass, with jazz records. Yes, that’s how Sweden welcomed me. Imagine that. Back then, in 1981. You only know the code to the front door of the tenement house and can roam around all the apartments. Unimaginable. And then so many wonderful experiences. Well, when we started our YouTube channel during the pandemic. I cooked at home, one of the first programs, Jansson’s Temptation. Janssons frestelse. And then the phone. Lovely ladies from the Swedish Embassy. Perhaps you’d like to come to Sweden? How so? A pandemic. Well, yes, but we have restaurants here. You can come. And that was our first trip abroad during the pandemic. That’s right. Sweden, I’m grateful to you and I’m always happy when I’m here. And just look how beautiful it is here. This is what we’ll be so eager to show you. And if I exceed the speed limit, the car will start squealing. It broke down. It doesn’t squeal. A good forest road. Maybe it squeaks, squeaks. There must be order. Predictability. Sweden, you’re lovely. This is the car we rented, and this is our base. Campsite in Skellefteå. Year-round campsite. You can ski here in winter. Because there’s a slope, a ski lift. You can sleep in tents. Well, not in winter, but year-round you can sleep in campers, caravans, and above all, in cottages. And there are different types of cottages here. Either the ones you see here. In that very characteristic, most popular color in Sweden, or these. This one is ours. Large and white. It’s the second most popular color among Swedish wooden cottages, but this house is extraordinary. Not only because of its size. There’s the living room, incredibly high. Here’s the perfectly equipped kitchen. Truly perfectly. Because we have a refrigerator . We have a freezer. We have a microwave. We have an oven. We have a double espresso machine with two tanks. Coffee is drunk constantly in Sweden. We have a dishwasher, but what does this house run on? And that’s the essence of Swedishness, and what’s more, I’m talking about these solutions here, something extraordinary. Let’s start with something already conventional: solar panels. And these solar panels, of course, generate electricity. Well, yes, it’s happening now. It’s happening in spring. It’s happening in summer, but it’s a long winter here, and then there’s very little sun. There’s very little light at all. What then? Now we have a surplus of electricity generated by solar panels, and this surplus electricity is used to produce hydrogen gas. And when there’s not enough sunlight, the hydrogen generates electricity, making it almost a perpetual motion machine. This is an experimental solution, but a zero-emission house. The house is ideal in terms of ecology. Here we have two bathrooms, and the water is turned on by a photocell so it’s not wasted. Everything is as it should be, and it’s quintessentially Swedish, and this house is a novelty. The locals are very proud of it, and we simply enjoy living here. And very Swedish. We returned to Bjuröklubb. It’s the same day, but the weather is so different. It’s pouring now, terribly so, but luckily we came here for a reason that can also be enjoyed indoors. A special treat for me, and also, I imagine, a special treat for you. Well, I’ve been invited to a special kind of party. A crayfish party. It’s usually held outdoors. Unless it’s pouring, so we’re indoors. Mrs. Saleta, our local leader, and Mr. Niels, who’s the host. We’re in a place that looks like a private home, but it’s actually a restaurant. And the highlight of the program: boiled crayfish. There are other things, too. There’s hot smoked salmon. There’s wonderful Arctic, Nordic raspberries. Cloudberries. But that’s the most important thing. The season is just starting. Peak season is August, if I remember correctly. Traditionally, peak season is August, because we used to have fish in Sweden, dating back to around the 1950s. But that was only for the select few, the rich, and the famous. And until the early 1990s, we only fished in lakes and rivers. It wasn’t commercial, so we didn’t have as many crayfish. But in the late 1960s, a company in Sweden started importing crayfish from Turkey and China. They were the largest importers. Then we had a lot of crayfish. And that’s when it started to become a new, popular dish. Before, it was a dish for the poor. Now it’s for everyone, because we have a lot of crayfish. From Turkey. But in two Michelin-starred restaurants in Champagne, France, they served crayfish cooked in Champagne wine, imported from Turkey. How do you eat it? The tail is the best part? The tail contains the most meat. Inside, we have something called crayfish butter, but it’s a bit difficult to peel. Plus, not all crayfish have it. But it’s very tasty. It tastes a bit like crab. A bit different. I love crab. But let me try this. Great. But we don’t only have crayfish. We only have local products. Okay, akvavit, local beer. But this is very interesting. Is this a tart with local cheese? Yes. What’s this cheese called? The cheese looks like this; it’s called Västerbotten. Västerbotten cheese. Yes. Just like the city of Västerbotten. Yes. And it’s very important to know that the cheese can only be made in Västerbotten, because the cows in Västerbotten are so happy that the milk they produce is only for this cheese. They try to produce it in other places, but it’s necessary to live in Västerbotten to be able to make this cheese. There are several things we have similar in Poland, in Sweden, and in Poland. And I think one of the most important things is that we love dill. Dill is our most important herb. In places where there’s no dill, there’s no good food. Let’s drink to that. Thank you very much for the invitation. Skol. Skol, okay. You see, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly… This is exactly… Everyone has dirty hands, they eat crabs with their hands, not crabs, but crayfish. And there are crayfish here too. Skol. Man does not live by crayfish alone , and on the way home, we passed by a supermarket. And this is the perfect opportunity. The perfect excuse to tell you about how our world has changed. Ours, the one in Poland. Therefore, our stay in Sweden is completely different. Because Sweden, not only in the 1980s but also in the 1990s, was a mythical land for us, almost unattainable in terms of price. And now… Well, we were in the store. We were in the store, so it’s worth telling you how much everything costs here. And how does that compare to our prices? Let’s start with the most expensive items in front of me. I just bought all of this in the store. A stick of butter. It’s not a 200-gram stick like we have here; a regular stick of butter here is 250 grams, and there are some big ones too. Much bigger, because they use a ton of butter here. And a stick of butter is indeed much more expensive than here. 44.99 krona, or less than eighteen zlotys in our prices. Yes, more. The second thing is more expensive. Potatoes. I chose beautiful ones. Wonderful, carefully selected potatoes. A kilogram of potatoes, these ones, costs 18.90, or about 7.50 in Polish zlotys. Yes, that’s more, but now for the other things. Look. Wonderful smoked salmon. The package contains 300 grams. 300 grams of excellent cold-smoked salmon. And this salmon cost 98.90. In Polish crowns, that’s 39.56 PLN. There’s no way we could get smoked salmon for that price in Poland, let alone of such quality. More things. I love these shrimp. These are local shrimp. Look how beautiful they are. Cooked in brine. If you strain the brine, you have 280 grams of these shrimp. And it costs 35 PLN in our country. You also won’t find anything like this at that price in Poland. This is something that might be ridiculous, because it’s processed cheese. But processed cheese, which I absolutely adore. Processed cheese with pieces of shrimp. And this processed cheese, a huge 275-gram tube, costs 18 PLN with a piece. So, firstly, there’s nothing like this here. Secondly, such a tube is almost… It would definitely cost more. I have it here for the same price, because it can come in a tube or in these little boxes. Processed cheese with pieces of boiled crayfish. See? This is what we just ate. It costs exactly the same. 18 złoty with a light slice. It’s all Swedish. I also bought one non-Swedish item: Italian, Calabrian, spicy sausage. Nduja. And that Nduja cost 21 złoty. Here, it would cost 50 złoty, so first of all, I want to tell you that Sweden isn’t so outrageously priced. I’m not lying. I have the exact receipts here. Secondly, I’ll need all this to make something that proves that with a kitchen, and not just in space-age, hydrogen houses like this one, even in those houses, normal houses, you can feed yourself here for a normal price. I’ll make something extra with it in a moment. And what can you do with such beautiful Swedish potatoes? Of course, you can, and even should, make a very famous Swedish dish out of them. Hasselbacken potatoes. They were invented at the Hasselbacken restaurant, located on one of the islands in the Stockholm archipelago. These potatoes are baked, prepared in a very specific way. First, we need good potatoes. Large ones. In their skins, peeled, washed. And now we need to cut these potatoes in a very specific way. The idea is to cut them, but not cut all the way through. We need some kind of stop. We put two wooden spoons, for example, or two knives, and now you see. A knife, and that’s the only thing I brought with me. If it goes too far, it will hit the metal of whatever’s lying there. So it won’t… It won’t cut through completely. That’s the point. We make these cuts. That’s it. What do potatoes really need? They need salt and fat. So, for now, we have the first fat. Oil or olive oil. In this case, we’re in Sweden, not olive oil. Rapeseed oil. Plus quite a bit of salt, but also herbs. Herbs, specifically, I bought fresh thyme and fresh rosemary. Yes, plenty of salt. And I also have a black peppercorn grinder. And now I’ll be smearing everything with this mixture. We’ll put that aside for now. Here we chop. We chop the rosemary. Not too much. It can’t be too harsh. And thyme. The thyme is really young, so I’ll chop it, along with the sprigs. All of that will go inside. I’ll mix it all together, and that’s what I’ll be using… And that’s what I’ll be rubbing the potatoes with. I have a baking sheet here. A baking sheet lined with baking paper. Now… Such an incredibly simple mixture. Cream, cream, cream. Take a potato. Spread it out and thoroughly… There’s no point in messing with it with a spoon. Just thoroughly… Put it all in here, rub it in. Put it in, rub it in. And this is how we proceed with every potato destined for baking. Yes. Massage. Massage, rub. Grease your hands, but luckily they sell paper towels here, because now it’s time to put this one in the oven. I want to show you the power of globalization. Look at the oven display. Top heat, bottom heat. 210 degrees Celsius, right? I changed the language myself. Polish. 40 minutes to an hour. Middle half, but something else will happen halfway through . For now, 25 minutes to half an hour. We’re three-quarters of the way through the baking process. And now, see the mistakes. I cut too hard here. I mean, it’s holding, but it shouldn’t fall off like that. Now, what kind of potatoes? If they’re floury potatoes, it’s better because they’ll spread more during baking. Not as much. It’s a matter of the cut. But they’ll spread out in a fan-like fashion. If they’re salad potatoes, they’ll stay firmer. Less starch. Either way. At the very end, for extra flavor, we add a pat of butter to each potato, but for an even more modern touch, a tiny piece of nduja. It’ll melt and cover everything in a wonderful fan. So that’s how we do it, and we put it in the oven for ten, maybe fifteen minutes at most. Look. Crispbread, exactly what those ladies were making. See? The imprint of that rolling pin here. It’s the same thing, only dried out. On this one, we have that wonderful cheese with shrimp. We have shrimp, dill, and lemon. I didn’t mention the prices for dill and lemon, but it’s exactly the same as ours, and it’s… It’s beautiful. We have salmon. Dill-covered. You can lemon it and you have Hasselback potatoes. Look. I took these well-cut ones. They’re all well-buttered. They’re all well-salted. There’s that modern touch of nduja, a delicate spice. What’s the point? The point is that Sweden is beautiful and accessible, and let’s stick to that, my dears. To Sweden. To Sweden.

Tym razem rzuciło nas na daleką szwedzką północ, do miasta Skelleftea w regionie Vasterbotten, będącym wrotami Laponii. Zwiedzając okolicę podziwiać będziemy przepiękną północną przyrodę, inne oblicze Bałtyku nad Zatoką Botnicką, dowiemy się, jak wypiekać tradycyjny szwedzki chleb oraz dlaczegóż to raki nie są już tylko przysmakiem zarezerwowanym dla możnych. Pokażemy zeroemisyjny wodorowy dom campingowy, będący naszą bazą w trakcie pobytu, a w nim upieczemy słynne ziemniaki hasselback, które po raz pierwszy przyrządzono właśnie w Szwecji.
Partnerem wyjazdu była Ambasada Szwecji w Warszawie.

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