Seaweed harvesting and midsummer feasting in Sweden helped me reconnect with my island roots

“What we discard is often bully for us, and mean things tin beryllium life-saving”. 

I americium sitting cross-legged connected a woody bench, holding my notepad adjacent to my heart. I’ve been to a fewer different accuracy classes, and this feels for illustration 1 of them. There’s sunshine, and an aggravated breeze coming from nan oversea conscionable a fewer metres away.

I’m connected nan land of Vrångö, a mini but breathtaking fraction of nan 30,000 islands scattered each astir Sweden. The lukewarm May sun is astir to set, and its rays are reflected connected nan calm sea, bouncing disconnected millennia-old, soft rocks successful nan style of information hills.

It’s not a accuracy professor talking, and Plato is not nan matter astatine hand. Holding a metallic sheet afloat of seaweed of each shapes and colours - from rubbery emerald green, to glossy heavy purple, and ribbed matte achromatic - is Karolina Martinson. She is besides known by her company’s othername ‘Algblomman’, meaning ‘seaweed bloom’ successful Swedish.

'Seaweed safaris' connected Swedish islands

For islanders crossed Sweden, food and seafood are embedded successful their fare arsenic overmuch arsenic successful their culture. Midsummer celebrations return nan style of a crayfish boil enjoyed by family and friends astir a bonfire. Pickled food and salmon roe dispersed are synonymous pinch breakfast. 

But arsenic nan marine food organization dwindles owed to ambiance alteration and h2o contamination (particularly felt crossed nan Baltic and North Sea), group for illustration Karolina person started looking for their adjacent repast person to shore.

“You put connected a wetsuit, drawback your clipping devices and your net, and spell harvesting successful a kayak”, is really Karolina describes nan ‘seaweed safaris’ she leads successful Vrångö and neighbouring land Styrsö, wherever she lives. Guests are taught really to find and forage nan champion seaweed for their supper, and put together a delicious seaweed-based repast astatine nan end.

It’s not nan first clip I've travel crossed nan concept. In my autochthonal Sicily, nan jewel successful nan crown of nan Italian peninsula, adapting to what nan oversea gives you has been commonplace for millennia. One of my fondest puerility memories is eating crunchy whitebait fritters, made pinch food truthful mini and useless that fishermen gave them distant for free aft uncovering them astatine nan bottommost of nan valuable catch.

About 2,300 km distant from my Mediterranean home, Vrångö land soon becomes nan improbable nexus betwixt my passion for nutrient and nan ancestral ways connected to land nourishment I person forgotten aft truthful galore years connected dry, urbanised land.

Harvesting seaweed is thing caller - it’s astir restoring our ancestral diets

Karolina’s devotion to interconnectedness is thing nan wider land reflects. Vrångö is location to 241 group and is defined by a beardown consciousness of community. 

I study this connected time one, erstwhile nan section edifice owners, Jennie and Andreas Wijk, present a meal handbasket containing caller fruit, cheese, and breadstuff they baked conscionable astir nan area to my harbour-view room. But nary seaweed (yet).

Originally from mainland Sweden, Karolina remembers asking locals if they had immoderate accepted ways to eat seaweed successful nan archipelago erstwhile she moved 25 years ago. 

“Eating seaweed? It’s ne'er gotten that bad”, was their response, to Karolina’s amusement and disappointment. 

“They considered seaweed garbage, thing smelly and slimy that caused problem to their boats, and had to beryllium free from nan shore,” she explains.

Just for illustration successful Sicily, islanders utilized seaweed for its nutrients, feeding it to cattle and enriching nan ungraded pinch it. Eating it was a mislaid contented that belonged to their prehistoric ancestors, arsenic Karolina’s decade-long investigation revealed.

Sugar kelp, Irish moss, oversea lettuce, and mermaid’s necklace are only a fewer of nan varieties she displays connected nan plate. Some are caught successful nan depths, immoderate turn adjacent to shore, she explains, but each make for delicious food, rich | successful nutrients - from dessert erstwhile candied, to salty, crisp-like snacks erstwhile deep-fried.

No 1 was paying overmuch attraction to seaweed erstwhile Karolina started, and this spurred her on, thing of a thread successful her life, arsenic she acknowledges.

“Before I sewage into cooking seaweed and researching it, I was an creator moving pinch upcycled materials. Then, I worked pinch societal enterprises, helping women successful jail, and group pinch intelligence illnesses, among others”.

“So nan connecting thread of my life has been looking astatine what gets thrown distant - it tin beryllium food, it tin beryllium things, sadly, it tin beryllium people. And I want to assistance them up, avenge them.”

Summer for illustration a Swede pinch a kräftskiva and a full batch of fika

Memories of May Day celebrations astatine location slow commencement to aboveground arsenic Andreas Wijk drops crayfish aft scarlet crayfish into a gurgling pot, letting disconnected dill and beer-flavoured steam.

Grilled, not steamed, whitethorn beryllium my seafood cooking of choice, but though our methods whitethorn differ, nan ambiance surrounding nan crayfish feast is thing anchored powerfully to memories of increasing up watching my uncle navigator caller fish.

Soon aft nan plates are set, a vessel of bubbly is popped, and everyone prepares to stack their metallic trays pinch a bounty of seafood - freshly-cooked crayfish, smoked shrimps, and roe dips and dill aplenty. The bubbly flows, and speech (and songs) travel naturally.

The backdrop to this festive juncture is nan gorgeous harbour astatine Jennie and Andreas’ restaurant, Hamnkrogen Lotsen. The sanction is simply a nonstop nexus to a pirate who was peculiarly prolific successful nan archipelago and happens to beryllium related to nan Wijks.

My tegument still glowing pinch a sun tan, and my mind pleasantly formed backmost to a floating sauna, I yet spell backmost to mainland Sweden. Sitting successful nan quaint municipality of Alingsås connected a muggy afternoon, I already miss land life. But, to my surprise, nan connections to my autochthonal location don’t extremity successful Vrångö.

Alingsås has gotten Sweden talking since nan 1800s, arsenic nan birthplace of fika. A quintessentially Swedish custom, nan ingredients to fika are arsenic follows: a basking drink, a mini wound (preferably sweet), a companion for conversation, and sitting down.

Once a java break enjoyed by women moving astatine nan mill, fika is now thing each azygous family successful nan state does. “It is very democratic”, explains Fika circuit guideline Kersti Westin. “From nan Swedish Royals, to nan lowest-earning worker, everyone does fika.”

To different countries successful which coffee culture doesn’t travel naturally, this whitethorn sound for illustration a shocking custom, but I afloat get it. The Italian way, knocking backmost espressos astatine nan section bar, is besides a akin excuse for a chat pinch a coworker, friend, aliases family member.

“It’s clip group speech during nan time to cheque successful pinch 1 another. No phone, nary java connected nan go. You stock nan bitterness of life, but besides nan sweetness”, Kersti smiles arsenic we locomotion into Viola Cafe, astir to savour their award-winning Silvia cake.

Four stops later successful nan fika tour, I americium much than conscionable a hopeless romantic, reminiscing astir my roots. I americium a fika convert, and I can’t hold to spell backmost to my adopted location successful nan UK and operation a sensation of Swedish fika contented pinch Sicilian java - a last, saccharine reminder of home.

The writer was a impermanent of Intrepid, which offers a Taste of Scandinavia travel (7 days), aliases a 15-day Scandinavian Explorer covering Norway, Sweden, and Finland.