Summer solstice

 

Once again, I missed it. Oh, we remarked on the solstice and the longest day, but we didn’t celebrate it. I’ve always wanted to celebrate like they do in Scandinavian countries with picnics and bonfires and dancing around Maypoles. But what I really want is the fantastic spread of food associated with summer solstice. The menu usually includes many of the foods I love—salty, seafood, spreads, etc. It is, after all, a holiday that began in Sweden. And just for your calendars, depending on the tilt and rotation of the earth it can be anywhere from June 20 to June 22, but traditionally is celebrated June 24. The confusion in dates has something to do with old calendars, but I’m not going to try to explain it here.

This year, belatedly, I came across a menu that really spoke to me. I follow an online column called The Food Historian, by Sarah Wassberg Johnson, whose maiden name is a giveaway: she’s of Scandinavian descent. And she apparently gives a huge party for thirty or more people every year. This year, she published her menu and I’m sharing it with you, with due credit : The Food Historian Blog - THE FOOD HISTORIAN

Appetizers:

Deviled eggs; Fresh Pea Spread; Mushroom Pâté; Goat cheese; Creamed Pickled Herring; Rye Crackers

Sides: Dilled Potato Salad; Scandinavian Cucumber Salad; Pickled Beets; Pickled cucumber

Open Faced Sandwiches:

Salmon Cucumber Salad on White; Dill Havarti and Summer Sausage with Cucumber on Rye; Ham and Jarlsberg on Pumpernickel with Lingonberry Jam; Ski Queen Brunost on Rye with Strawberry Jam

Dessert:
Sandbakkels Small and Large with Jam and Whipped Cream; Midsummer Rice Pudding with Raspberry Sauce; Rommegrot Ice Cream

Drinks:
Rhubarb Gin & Tonics; Elderflower Punch.

Now, I’m not saying my dream midsummer menu would have all these choices. I’m not much on those sandwiches, except the salmon and cucumber, which I’d love. I’d fix the dill Havarti and summer sausage but leave out the cucumber, and I’d pass on the brunost, which translates to brown cheese. And it is very brown apparently. It’s made from leftovers of the cheesemaking process, boiled down until caramelized, and then shaped in blocks. Considered a good breakfast food. Not being a dessert fanatic, I’d probably pass on those too.

But, oh could I make a meal of those appetizers and sides! When I was young and in Chicago, we went to a wonderful restaurant called the Kungsholm and housed in the mansion built by inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick—think Harvester International. But back to food—the Kungsholm had an enormous buffet featuring all the foods from Johnson’s menu plus more in three stages: the cold appetizers, the hot dishes (such as veal), and dessert. I remember particularly the caviar, huge bowls of it. When I was newly married, my husband kept going back for more caviar, until my mother exclaimed she’d never seen a person eat so much of it. I’m sure the Kungsholm is where I developed or refined my taste for Scandinavian food. And a bonus: after the meal, you could attend the puppet opera. What I know of opera also comes from those trips to the McCormick mansion. But I digress from food.

If I had to pick one recipe from Sarah Johnson’s menu, I guess I’d choose:
Open-faced salmon cucumber sandwiches
For a small group, halve this recipe.

2 cans (5 oz. each) salmon

1 cup finely chopped English cucumber

2 scallions, sliced

fresh dill, minced

lemon juice or white wine vinegar

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Mayonnaise to bind

Butter

Drain and flake the salmon, then stir in the cucumber, scallions, and fresh dill. Add salt and pepper and a splash or two of lemon juice or white wine vinegar and toss to coat. Stir in Dijon mustard and mayonnaise to coat.

Lightly butter enough thin baguette slices or cocktail rye for your party. Spoon salad onto buttered breads.

You can use tuna in this recipe instead of salmon, if you prefer. You can also use leftover grilled, poached or roasted salmon, but remember that it will be higher in fat content than the canned which will change the flavor. Canned salmon will provide a milder taste than either tuna or fresh fish.

You can find more of Sarah Johnson’s midsummer recipes at The Food Historian Blog - THE FOOD HISTORIAN

SKAL!

 

A smorgasbord dish

I find myself beginning a lot of food-related posts with, “When I was a kid,” which only tells me that I got my love of food and cooking and feeding others as a child. I credit my mom, who was incredibly patient with me on the kitchen. This memory though comes from a restaurant that my parents took me to more than once. The Kungsholm in Chicago, located in the former McCormick Mansion on the near North Side, offered a true Swedish smorgasbord, a huge table filled with all kinds of delicacies from the three traditional stages of smorgasbord dining: herring and seafood; hot entrees, like Kalvfild a la Oscar (veal tenderloin with shrimp and asparagus tips covered by béarnaise sauce); and salads and cheeses, followed by dessert and coffee or wine. I think it was at that table that I loved to learn fishy things like herring and caviar.

An additional treat but not food related: after dinner we adjourned to a room that had been converted into a puppet theater, and that’s where any knowledge I may have of classic opera came from. I particularly remember seeing Faust there. The characters moved mechanically on tracks hidden in the floor; they were controlled by people behind the set, often young people with operatic ambitions—I had a friend whose brother worked there.

Back to food: last weekend, with neighbors, we had a pot-luck German dinner, and one of my contributions was the herring salad. If you think you don’t like pickled herring, I urge you to try this. I wanted to start with herring in wine, but the grocery gave me dill-flavored—no matter. It was good. This will serve four people as an appetizer or a side.

Herring salad

12 oz. jar pickled herring, drained but keep the onion rings

One large potato, cooked, peeled, and cubed (I find it easiest to boil the potato whole—watch that the pot doesn’t boil dry—and refrigerate. After a few hours, the chilled potato is easy to peel and holds together when you cube it

4 green onions, sliced

2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and diced

(The original recipe also called for one-half tart apple, cubed, but I found the hardness of the apple incompatible with the rest of the salad; I also omitted a half cup pickled cucumbers because I forgot to buy a cucumber, but sliced cucumber, pickled in equal parts vinegar and water, might add a really nice crunch without being as hard as an apple)

Salt as needed—you shouldn’t need much if any because the herring is salty

For the dressing:

¾ cup good Greek yogurt

½ c. mayonnaise

(you can vary the proportions, but I prefer mostly yogurt0

A pinch of white pepper (if you don’t have white, use black—it’s not the end of the world)

Juice of half a lemon

1 Tbsp. cream of horseradish or plain preserved horseradish

Chopped fresh parsley to decorate

Add the dressing a bit at a time—the quantities were in metric, and my translation to standard American measurements is loose. You want the ingredients lightly coated but not swimming in dressing.

Serve chilled.

In case you need a little encouragement to try herring, did you know that this fish helps produce red blood cells, is extremely high in Omega 3 Fatty Acids, promotes healthy bones, stimulates the brain nerve, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, is high in antioxidants, and helps improve the memory and avoid dementia. Why, who knew a fish could be a miracle drug!