Finnish Pancakes & Swedish Silence

Last week we ate Swedish pancakes, but this week I wanted to try a new recipe for Finnish pancakes. In all honesty, I don’t know if this is what Finns would consider pancakes or even eat, but it was a yummy dish. I served mine with apple slices sautéed in butter, sugar, and plenty of Saigon cinnamon, and fresh blueberries. The recipe can be found here.

With the snow coming down in sheets outside, I find myself thinking of my childhood winters. The darkness that lay siege for months, the wet snow pants flung over the heater to dry overnight, the woolly mittens that turned stiff with ice, the hot chocolate we drank from thermoses at the foot of the ski slope, and the rose-scented Nivea cream that my mother rubbed into my face every morning. But most of all I think of the silence. The vast silence.

Perhaps Swedes are quiet by temperament. Perhaps it’s the weather. Perhaps it’s because it’s such a sparsely populated country. Perhaps it is due to some inherited sense of doom and gloom, passed down for generations since the glory days of the Vikings, when energy could not be wasted on small talk and niceties.

Many a non-Swede has complained to me about the frostiness of my people. Our lack of warmth and spontaneity, the way we keep ourselves at a distance. I used to spread my hands and shake my head in some sort of apology. I used to think to myself:
“How terrible! What a strange people we are!”

As Swedes, we admit to being reserved:

“Well, that’s what we are like,” we sigh.

This feeble expression of regret is generally delivered with a slight blush of the cheek. Out of either shame or guilt or a sincere wish that it could be different. But alas it can’t. We aren’t as easy-going as the Danes, as elegant as the Finns, as historic as the Icelanders, or as jolly as the Norwegians. And we will never be.

The fact is, that Swedes are a little embarrassed about being Swedes. Most Americans I know are very happy to be Americans, without the slightest doubt they exclaim:

 “This is the greatest nation in the world!”

A Swede would never do such a thing. Ever. Honesty is valued very highly by Swedes, and can we honestly stand up and say that Sweden is better than any other country? Of course not.

I don’t know of any other country where it’s considered shameful to sing the national anthem on the national day. Last year when I was in Sweden, a great number of songs were sung on the national day (June 6) but when the band tentatively began playing the national anthem, the audience fell quiet. As Swedes, we cringe and turn beet red, uncomfortable at having to profess love for our native country in a song. We worry that others are going to think we’re racists. And what others think is of utmost importance in Sweden.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh here. I don’t mean to. I love and understand my fellow Swedes. After all, we are the only people in the world who really understand what Ingmar Bergman’s movies are about.

I am inclined to believe our frostiness has to do with the nature of our country. It is after all a calm and quiet kind of nature. Sweden won’t give you noisy beaches; Sweden will give you clear lakes. You won’t be shaking your maracas in a carnival in Sweden; you will be sitting under a tree in a forest. A Swedish friend may not overwhelm you with cries of “I LOVE you!” but he will be there when you need him. That I can guarantee.

Next time a Swede seems frosty or unfriendly to you, don’t take it personally. Think of it this way, by giving you silence and space, we are giving you the most precious things we know.

Have a lovely weekend!