Falukorv: another major Swedish landmark down

Tonight, we made falukorv for dinner.

This giant red curved odd hot dog thing is as Swedish as apple pie is American. I hadn't eaten it (unless you count its presence in pytt i panna) much less cooked it at home, but I thought since my dad is in town, it would be appropriate to try. You know, like we had to try all those other ridiculous Swedish foodstuffs like tunnbrödrullar, salty licorice, messmör and julmust.

It had kind of an interesting story. It is a protected food in the EU, much like Parma or Buffalo mozzarella, and you can't call it "Falukorv" unless it is made like it has been traditionally in the region surrounding Falun in the middle of Sweden. Something about being made with potato flour and a certain percentage of a certain kind of meat. Anyway, the sausage recipe comes from way back in the 1500s, when the copper mines near Falun was slaughtering large numbers of oxen for their hides, to make rope to pull the ore out of the deep mining pits. The meat from the animals was too much for the miners, so they smoked it and it became well-known. And today, its a staple of Swedish school lunches and family dinners.

It wasn't so bad! I quite like sausage (I tried vegetarianism for over a year once, but it was kielbasa I dreamed about and turned me omnivore again!) It isn't exactly like sausage, but like a fat ballpark hotdog. Which would make you think you should just boil it, or bake it, or slice it up and fry it, right? Sadly, I didn't realize that you don't eat the casing until halfway through cooking it, and it would have been far easier to peel that bastard before it was super hot. Oh well. It was a success, and my dad even ate the brussel sprouts I made with it.