Friday, November 20, 2009

Swedish Pizza


In a word…not that good. But at least it’s easy to find. Based on the number of pizza restaurants here, I think it’s more popular in Sweden than it is in Italy or Chicago. If you want to know the population of a town, all you have to do is count up the number a pizza joints they have there. The ratio seems to be roughly 1 pizza establishment per 1,000 people. For example, the town I live in has about 20,000 people and boasts no less than 20 pizza places, and this seems to be a pretty average proportion across the board. Quite a high density considering the quality of the product. The menus at these pizza places feature about 800 choices, but among those I have yet to find a pepperoni pizza. Or sausage. I always thought of pepperoni as the common go-to pizza choice but apparently not here. However, if you are pregnant or maybe high on something and are craving a shrimp, banana, peanut, jalapeno, mussle and egg pizza with a curry sauce you are sure to be able to find that. I did have a Hawaiian pizza the other day but that was kind of weird too. Instead of big slices of ham and little chunks of pineapple, it had a few tiny slivers of ham and two huge pineapple circles in the middle. So four of the bites were entirely pineapple and the rest had none. Hardly any sauce or cheese but it did come with one of those thrilling ”pizza salads” which is like some kind of cole slaw or something with a lot of vinegar. And why would you ever cut the pizza into slices? That would just be silly. And it doesn’t appear that the pizza box manufacturers have ever had a dialogue with the people who make and sell pizza. Maybe that’s because, well let’s just say that there could often be a language barrier. But in any case, if a standard size pizza here is a 14”, then the standard size box is made for a 12” because they never fit. The sides of the pizza are always folded up to fit in the box. I’d be lying if I said I missed Dominos but I could sure go for a deep dish Chicago style with extra sauce (pizza sauce I mean) that was cut into slices and served with a cold beverage that maybe even had ice cubes in it.

4 comments:

  1. Just found your blog. Very enjoyable! As you mentioned in one post, not much about Sweden is taught in North American schools. Sort of a mystery country.

    That pizza looks sad. What's up with the bogus "American" foods (i.e. the burger sauce) in Europe??? Came across a number of those examples in England as well. Things labeled "American Style..." that I had NEVER seen in my life!

    BTW, they are not all blonds, the crown princess is a brunette.

    Keep Writing! :)

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  2. Lollol, you got right. In my town is the population round 3000-4000 people and we got 4 pizzaplaces. But it is fast, simple and pritty ok.
    That doesn´t mean that we think "oooh real italiono pizza".
    Sorry for bad english.

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  3. Yeh too true...swedish pizza is weird, there's definitely room for a real* pizza place *when i say real i mean not paper thin and made with love ;)

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  4. The pizza salad is required because the "cheese" is made from powdered milk rehydrated with diesel oil.

    Swedish pizza would actually be half decent if they used, you know, cheese.

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