Delicious food at the Lovén Marine Centre: a separate post

Oh my gosh, did we eat delicious food at the marine station. Shrimp curry, pasta with cream sauce and sausage, white fish with green sauce and mussels, potato leek soup, pea soup with (Swedish) pancakes (this is what you traditionally eat every Thursday). Also, (Swedish) meatballs in cream sauce, and wild boar with rice. Lunch is the largest meal, and there is always an accompanying salad bar, the best I’ve ever had. In addition to the fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and usual suspects, there were little pre-made salads too: garbanzo-radish-onion, potato, green bean, pinto bean-onion, sweet black bean with bell peppers, turmeric-curry bananas…yum! Also, honeydew-like yellow melons. Desserts did not happen every night, but when they did, they were lingon berry cobblers.

And breakfast every morning was a feast: in addition to 4 different kefirs and yogurts of three different fat contents for the muesli and cereals, there was rolls (yummy triangle-rolls with pumpkin seeds) and bread with which to get creative. I usually went with butter, cheese (from the huge cheese wheel), and made one with soft-boiled egg, pickle and cod caviar, and the other with jam (yep, delicious with the cheese!). There was also pickled herring: a really rich, oily fish that was sweet and vinegary at the same time.

On Thursday night (after our pea soup and pancake lunch), we had an incredible Swedish feast, that was made especially for us. All other meals we ate were with everyone from the station: everyone comes from their labs or offices and we eat together. On Thursday, we had a later sitting, privately, and when we arrived there were flowers on the table, which was set with nice napkins and wine glasses. And we ate the traditional seafood dinner of Sweden. There were piles of shrimp. These shrimps were whole, and looked perfect and pink. They are boiled on board the ships by the fishermen right after they are caught—this makes them as fresh as possible and keeps them in the best shape. And, since they are at sea, they are boiled in seawater: this gives them an overall saltiness and nothing else is done to them before eating them. So we sat at the table cleaning the shrimps to eat their delicious saltiness. And there was salmon, too. Smoked in three different ways, one with delicious pepper and spices on it. And one with this fabulous green onion sauce as an accompaniment. It was an amazing feast, with fresh baguettes with butter and cheese. And then lingon berry pie! Three of them!

There was so much delicious food at the station, and so much of it was traditional. And every day from 10-10:30 and 15:00-15:30, everyone came out of their offices and labs and got together for the fika, or coffee break. But it’s more than a coffee break—it’s a time to be together and socialize. It was a wonderful thing, and talking to the Swedes they were amazed that Americans don’t do such a thing. You guys work too much! Yes, yes we do. It was really nice to have that break, and it really worked well with breaking up our 2 lectures in the morning and lab time in the afternoon. For the members of the marine station, there are cookies or little cakes available to buy. But for us, everything was free. They would have cookies for us at the morning fika, and bake us chocolate or berry cakes in the afternoon. It is going to be hard to get used to anything else...