Even though Sweden is not a very religious country, Easter is still an important holiday. In contrast to my home country, Austria, the church does not play a very prominent role in Easter celebrations in Sweden. Most Swedes use this holiday to spend time with their family at home. However, there are many Easter traditions that have a religious origin but Swedes are still caring for them.

When it comes to Easter meals, eggs are probably as important as they are in many other countries. They accompany pickled herring, which is the centerpiece of a traditional Easter meal.

When we celebrated Easter in form of a belated Easter dinner in the corridor, traditional Swedish dishes were to be found. Among the already mentioned pickled herring in various flavours (try it, even if you don’t like fish too much – it’s actually quite good!!) and eggs, we also had salmon and Jansson’s (traditionally with potato, onion and pickled anchovies baked in cream). But since we do have some foreigners living with us, we also had some dishes from other countries such as rice pudding.

Even though most Swedes were home with their families for Easter Sunday, a few stayed behind in the almost empty corridor. Together we pulled together an Easter Brunch with everything the heart desires. This time, the table was filled with some traditional Austrian dishes (which are often sweet rather than savoury) – such as Striezel (a sweet bread formed like a braid) and Kaiserschmarrn (by Swedes referred to as destroyed pancakes). By organizing this brunch together and spending time with some of our corridor family, it was not too hard to not go home for Easter and celebrate with our own family.

 

I hope you had a great Easter too!

Iris

PS.: Read more about Easter in Sweden here.

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