

In this adorable illustrated cookbook, Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall share nearly fifty classic recipes from their motherland-from cinnamon buns and ginger snaps to rhubarb cordial and rye bread-allowing all of us to enjoy this charming tradition regardless of where we live.

A time to take a rest from work and chat with friends or colleagues over a cup and a sweet treat, fika reflects the Swedish ideal of slowing down to appreciate life’s small joys. Fika can be had alone or in groups, indoors or outdoors, while traveling or at home. It is also the latest selection for the KCRW Cookbook Club. Sweden is one of the world’s top coffee consuming nations, and the twice-daily social coffee break known as fika is a cherished custom. Check out the book all about Fika, read about the art of the Swedish coffee break in the Fika book released this spring. Living in one of the worlds top coffee consuming nations, Swedes enjoy a twice daily social coffee break called 'fika.' Anne Brones and Johanna Kindvall detail the cherished tradition in their book Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break. I put the leftovers in the freezer.Īn illustrated lifestyle cookbook on the Swedish tradition of fika-a twice-daily coffee break-including recipes for traditional baked goods, information and anecdotes about Swedish coffee culture, and the roots and modern incarnations of this cherished custom. These are definitely best right out of the oven. I think the rolled version would cook more evenly. While the twisted ones looked beautiful, I had to cook them about 10 minutes to get the centers done and that made the bottom of the buns slightly more done than I wanted. Sweden is one of the worlds top coffee consuming nations, and the social coffee break known as fika is a cultural institution. Next time, I might just try the plain, rolled like a snail version.

I shaped them into the fancy, twisted version shown on the second page of the recipe. The only pain was shelling all those cardamom pods to get the seeds out it took me at least half an hour to get the 3.5 tsps of seeds that I needed. Also, I used ceylon cinnamon rather than cassia cinnamon, so the cinnamon flavor was mild. Fika: The Art of The Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats A Baking Book (Hardcover) Description About the Author. I made the cinnamon variety which was very heavy on the cardamom and thus tasted a bit closer to a cardamom bun. In English, you can just say it how it appears phonetically: fee-ka.VETEBULLAR - KANELBULLAR och KARDEMUMMABULLAR (Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns), page 26 - These buns are really delicious. In Swedish, emphasis is on the f-fffeeekah. Today, Sweden is one of the top coffee-consuming countries in the world, downing an average of 18 pounds of coffee per capita per year, per Mental Floss. Browse and save recipes from Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats to your own online collection at. Once the final ban ended in 1822, coffee consumption shot up. Other historians have hypothesized that the bans were motivated by the European trade crisis. The reason? Some point to the influence of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, the physician to the admiralty, who considered it a threat to Swedish culture, deeming it a French “foreign custom” that was “infecting our people.” The word fika is an inverted form of “kaffi,” the 19th-century Swedish word for “coffee.” This shuffling of the syllables (and the removal of the other “f”) was to disguise the practice, since the very importation and consumption of coffee was banned five times between 17, reports the Local Sweden. The communal nature of these “scheduled pauses” is thought to foster stronger connections and feelings of a more equitable workplace, according to the BBC.
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At many workplaces in Sweden, these fika breaks, called fikarast or fikapaus, are even built into the daily calendar as an activity, reports Matthias Kamann in How to Be Swedish. Don’t like coffee, which is typically dark roast and unlimited during fika? Tea, soda, or any other drink will do.įika is a social affair: the best sort of coffee afternoon at home, where conversation rambles and there is no agenda, or a morning break with coworkers in an office. In the loosest possible sense, it typically refers to coffee consumption with a snack those snacks can be sweet (cardamom bun, cookie, chocolates) or savory (a small open-faced sandwich). Used as both a noun and a verb, fika is a Swedish institution. So what is it, exactly? Grab a cup of coffee, and let’s dive in. fika? Yes, that fika is one of the most common Swedish words for travelers to know-right there after “hello” and “thank you”-will most likely be no surprise to anyone who is a fan of a coffee break (or two, or three).īut to call fika a mere “coffee break” is doing it a disservice.
