Sweden is very proud by its traditional cuisine, the meatballs were part of it till this week when official Sweden’s Twitter has admitted that Swedish meatballs are, in fact, Turkish.
Meatballs, the signature food served in traditional Swedish holiday meals and in Ikea cafeterias around the world, are a no more national dish. According to tweet, Charles XII reigned as King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718, and he lived in Turkey from 1709 to 1714 during the Great Northern War, in which Russia challenged Sweden. This monarch brought meatballs recept from Turkey in the early 18th century, and the local people appreciated them so much!
In fact, lingonberry jam is also a controversial thing, regarding that berries don’t grow in Sweden exclusively. Last Wednesday, Sweden’s official Twitter noted,
“But lingonberry jam accompanying meatballs is damn near as Swedish as it gets!”
It remains to be seen whether the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea will respond to the revelation. About 2 million meatballs are consumed in Ikea stores worldwide every day.
“We do love facts as much we love meatballs!”
Sweden tweeted on Monday, and this admission fueled surprise and confusion on social media. Especially, Turkish media, who reacted immediately:
“Swedish meatballs originally Turkish dish: Swedish government,”
said the headline in Hürriyet Daily News, after Sweden’s official national Twitter account, @swedense, came clean last weekend.
Meanwhile, others saw a perfect reason to suit in Sweden’s admission tweet. Serdar Çam, president of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, complained that Ikea, which sells 2m meatballs a day in its in-store restaurants, should not be selling the dish as though it were Swedish.
