Midsommar Munchies

Breakfast:
A Scandinavian breakfast is very different to what I'm used to. This is what I had yesterday:

Bread
The thing that looks like a slice of chocolate is dark rye bread. This is vastly different to previous rye breads I have tasted. It is soft and slightly sweet and very tasty. The breakfast buffet has about 8 types of breads each day, including hard breads, rolls and sliced bread. My favourite bread looks like a flattened crumpet (it doesn't taste like one though).

Sliced meats
This day I had ham (slinka). I could have had salami, or two other kinds of ham. There might have been turkey available.

Fruits & Vegetables
There's always some fruits - apple, orange, kiwi fruit, melon etc. You can have tomato and capsicum too.

Fish
Salmon is everywhere - there is some Gravad Lax on my plate (cured salmon, not smoked - tastes different)
Pickled fish is popular - this day I tried some tinned sprats (not to my liking). I could also have tried pickled herring, or onion herring.
The stuff that looks like smoosh is seafood mix - my favourite thing. I don't know what is in it apart from prawns & dill, but it is delish.

Cheese
Oh the cheese! At breakfast you get a selection of 4 types - this day I had some brie and some provost (chedder-like). I have never had so much variety of cheeses. (yesterday, across the entire day I would have had 6 types of cheese - the two mentioned above plus gorgonzola, motzerella, fetta & parmesan).

Cookies
yes - those things that look like cookies down the bottom right corner are cookies. It's breakfast dessert.

Drinks
I have had a freshly made berry smoothie each day. If I didn't want this, or the standard tea/coffee/juice, I could have a choice of about 5 different milks and drinking yoghurts (including soured milk - not ready to try this - yet!).

Also on offer - blend your own cereal (different grains with all the trimming to mix together), pickles, mustards, radishes, eggs, pastries, spreads, pate....

Snacks
The Svensk love their hotdogs. There are hotdog stands (grillen) everywhere. It's more about the sausage than the bun as you can see from the picture.

(in the backgound - delicious pear cider, could make you fall off your chair - very easy drinking and reasonably alcoholic)

Cakes and pastries are just as, if not more popular. Self serve is common (even to the point of sometimes you cut your own slice). This is the selection that we picked our Midsommar Eve afternoon tea from:

The cakes are all fabulous. There are a few traditional cakes that you see frequently, but each place always has something a bit new and different to the last. Chocolate, macaroons, berries, meringue, almonds, pistachios and apples all appear in cake displays. It is going to be very hard to return to regular cakeage after this.  Even the supermarkets have displays of fresh pastries - the smell is enough to make me dizzy it all smells so good. I had to send Dr M to get the bread when we were in there today - I couldn't trust myself to get close to the cabinet without selecting a few sticky, warm pastries.