Minus 24 degrees Celsius is not as
bad as it sounds.
That is what I tell my children when we
board a wooden sled attached to a snowmobile and wrap ourselves in reindeer
skins. If my kids hear me, they give no indication. They are buried in layers
of long underwear, wool, down, more wool, probably some Gore-Tex, those foot
heater things, and whatever balaclavas are made of. I cannot even see their
faces. The two huddled bodies opposite me on the sled may not even be my
children for all I know.
My husband, kids, and I are on our way,
improbably, to taste supposedly the best waffles in the entire country of
Sweden. But first you have to get there.
The waffle promised land — Hemfjällsstugan
— is about 5km from the nearest road in Sälen, a town on Sweden’s western flank
about five hours by car from Stockholm.
Soon enough, that little cabin in the middle of the snowy woods… swelled with the volume of happy Nordic people. “This must be the coziest restaurant in the world.”
A few days earlier, a woman named Cissi
Bjuredahl had warned me by email that Hemfjällsstugan, which lacks electricity
and water, was not exactly a restaurant. “We only serve soups, waffles &
fika,” she wrote. Bjuredahl also told me the only way to get there was by
snowmobile or cross-country skis. “But remember you are in the mountains, so if
the weather is bad, don’t go if you haven’t tried skis before,” she had warned.
And then, perhaps walking back the very Swedish honesty: “Welcome!”
Ergo, the snowmobile. As Felix, our teenage
driver, guided our sled toward Hemfjällsstugan, we zoomed into a snow squall,
shapes and shadows faded into nothingness. It was like watching a painting in
reverse: from depth and perspective to a seamless white void until the
landscape was simply erased and you could not tell the difference between earth
and sky.
Waffles
with cloudberry jam and whipped cream at Hemfjällsstugan, a cabin near Sälen,
Sweden, in February 2023.
It is a little troubling to not know where
the ground is. After about 20 minutes, my son peeked out of his scarf long
enough to tell me he was scared, and could we please go back? But then,
suddenly, we had arrived at Hemfjällsstugan: a modest log cabin with a 9-meter
pole with the flag of Sweden whipping around it in the icy wind — everything
but Mrs Claus opening the front door wiping her hands on her apron.
On the inside, Hemfjällsstugan is lit
entirely by candles and oil lamps. The dining area is a series of wooden tables
and benches, a counter, and a small chalkboard menu: waffles with homemade
strawberry jam, waffles with homemade blueberry jam, and waffles with homemade
cloudberry jam. I think there was a soup, too.
The fires blazing in every wood stove were
soon crowded with arriving skiers and snowmobilers, shedding layers, waiting to
regain sensation in their extremities. Soon enough, that little cabin in the
middle of the snowy woods — full of people clicking off their helmets, helping
themselves to homemade kanelbullar (Swedish cinnamon and cardamom rolls) and
strong coffee — swelled with the volume of happy Nordic people.
Mountains
in Sälen, Sweden.
“This must be the coziest restaurant in the
world,” said my daughter, a connoisseur of these things.
Swedish, through and throughBroadly speaking, Hemfjällsstugan is in the
town of Sälen. I have Swedish cousins who come here every year to ski, and this
year we had come to join them for a few days. The town of Sälen is not well
known outside Sweden. It is not like flying to Europe to ski in Courchevel or
Gstaad. On the other hand, it is only a few hours from Stockholm, Gothenberg,
or in the case of my family, Jönköping — which means the place is Swedish
through and through.
The whole area is called “Sälenfjällen”
(which means “Sälen mountains”). There are about half a dozen ski resorts in
Sälenfjällen — Stöten, Hundfjället, and Lindvallen are the ones we visited.
Swedes call the whole place “Sälen” for short, the way that Californians say
“Tahoe” even though there are a dozen mountains there.
It is a part of Swedish culture that I have always loved: the mandate that if you are eating and drinking with other people, there must be singing.
The mountains are not intimidating; they are
what you would get if you sanded the top of the Alps down to smooth, endless
hills. At the bottom they are blanketed in forest, but there are no trees at
the summit, so you can ski down in almost every direction. The slopes are
mostly gentle, and there are trails for every level skier, cross-country skier,
and snowboarder.
Possibly the best reason to get to the top
of the mountains is to eat. There is almost always a sit-down restaurant at the
peak, with menus that are local, seasonal, and prepared by French-trained
chefs.
“When you’re skiing all day, you want a lot
of good food,” said Daniel Ahlen, head chef and owner of several restaurants in
the area, including Lyktan, which sits atop Hundfjället, and Fompes Grill,
which sits at the bottom of the same mountain and serves local sausages, vegan
burgers, and salty fries.
Ahlen centers his menus on Swedish comfort
food. “I think people would get really mad if we removed the goulash from our
menu,” he said. “In Dalarna, we have our own way of doing things. Our tradition
here of hunting and fishing and outdoor life are things we want to take care of
and show to the rest of Sweden.” On his list: “the elk, the birds, the fish,
the berries in the woods”.
About those berries. Every menu, every
drinks list, every candy store (and there are a lot of them) has cloudberry
something. I asked Ahlen why cloudberries have celebrity status here, and he
explained that they are the pride of the forest, the rare Arctic berry. “If you
serve waffles to a Swedish person who is a grown-up, you must serve it with
cloudberry jam,” said Ahlen, who also owns Våffelstugen Hundfjället, a nearby
cabin that specializes in waffles.
An après-ski partyA few days after our own waffle adventure,
we spent a day skiing at Lindvallen, a few miles away. In the afternoon, as the
sun was setting, we decided to end the day at a restaurant called Sälen
Original, a log house with a high-pitched roof tucked on the side of the
mountain.
Shots
of schnapps are topped with whipped cream at Sälen Original in Sälen, Sweden.
Sälen Original takes après ski to a whole
new and extremely Swedish level. When we walked in at around 2:45, it was
silent and almost empty. A man on a plain wood stage was tuning his guitar.
Then, at precisely 3pm, with theatrical precision, the door was thrown open and
Swedes clomped in with their ski boots, tables filled up, and the guitarist
started.
People ordered schnapps with whipped cream,
shots of Jägermeister, giant steins of beer, as well as burgers, pretzels,
mountains of fries, and, naturally, waffles. As the guy with the guitar began
singing American rock songs and Swedish folk songs, the whole place came to
life. It is a part of Swedish culture that I have always loved: the mandate
that if you are eating and drinking with other people, there must be singing.
There is such a sweetness to Sälen, like you have been transported into a snowy, benevolent Swedish fairy tale.
People ate and drank, clapped and sang
along, and ordered more rounds of glögg (spiced mulled wine); kids climbed the
stairs, dangling their feet off the balcony, while servers carried skis — holes
drilled to hold shots of schnapps — in every direction.
By the time we left, it was pitch black and
completely silent outside. Maybe Sälen, I had started to think, claims more
magic than other places. The kindly red farmhouses, the trails of chimney smoke
curling upward from every village, the wise, endless forests with their
precious berries, their creatures, their secrets. The warm cabins and homemade
waffles hiding deep inside these woods. The whole place patrolled by elk,
reindeer, the very real possibility of gnomes. There is such a sweetness to
Sälen, like you have been transported into a snowy, benevolent Swedish fairy
tale.
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