Should we close the door?
No, no it will,
it would, it's,
it's supposed to be open.
Next on my mission
around Sweden,
I was traveling far
north, to Umea.
It was a long journey, so
I had a little
snack on route.
A big thing in Sweden
is food in tubes.
We basically have
rows of them,
in the supermarkets.
For example, this one,
Kalles kaviar,
it's basically a staple
food in Sweden.
You'll find it
in every fridge.
We have it with
the boiled egg
in the morning.
You can make a sandwich
with hard bread,
cut up boiled egg, and
then Kalles kaviar
on top of it.
It has a very
acquired taste, and
it seems only Swedes,
Swedes like it really.
This is another
Swedish classic.
Our cameraman had it.
And he said it tasted
like caramel, salt and
cheese, which for
me sounds great.
But I could see that
he was almost puking.
He was gagging from it.
I mean, we have loads of
different food in tubes.
We have tuna, a
vegetarian one, mackerel,
salmon, tons.
I'm gonna have some
ham and cheese.
I mean, they're cheap.
It's real easy to just
have in a backpack or, or
whatever, when
we go camping,
when you go skiing.
Especially going
to festivals.
These are great.
Mmhm, like it.
Food in tubes.
First up, I headed to
Sorsele, four hours north
of Umeå to meet Tobias,
a reindeer herder.
Tobias is Saami,
who are the indigenous
people of Sweden.
They have their
own language and
traditional culture
tied to the land.
Tobias.
What are we
gonna do today?
We're gonna look
at some reindeers.
Reindeer is a popular
meat in Sweden, and
legally only the Sami
people are allowed
to herd them.
So, you're Saami.
Your parents are Saami.
What does that
really mean?
Well, the Saami people
is, is the indigenous
people of the countries
of Norway, Sweden,
Finland, and Russia.
I think we have
the longest migration,
maybe in the world.
Because you have to
follow the reindeer?
Yes.
They have a,
a natural way of moving
in autumn and spring.
We're not herding them.
We're just
following them.
So you're no way
like cowboys, like.
Scaring them and-.
No, no, no-.
And
trying to get them to go
to the right direction.
No, no.
Cowboys of the north.
Sounds cool though.
Yeah, sounds cool.
More, more like
the Indians of the north.
Yeah.
In our more natural way.
It's tradition of,
of migration and
the way of living.
It's important to, yeah,
to keep the culture.
It's in the blood.
Roughly 3,000 of
the 35,000 Swedish Saami
are reindeer herders.
Yee hah!
Our first task was to
round up the reindeers so
that they could be
transported to the coast
for winter.
But how do we catch them?
We just grab
them by hand.
You're just
grabbing them?
Yes.
Going to start with
taking the little,
small ones out.
Okay.
Is that a small one?
Yes, that is a small one.
Come here with it.
Good Ivor.
I got him!
That's a strong one.
Get this, Tobias.
Okay, this is
a bit crazy.
They want to get out.
Aah!
Are you scared, Ivor?
No, not really.
Just don't want that
thing in my eye.
Watch out.
You better watch out for
the antlers.
This is fun, Tobias.
Is it?
Yeah.
So we've got the small
ones out because they go
separate, in separate
booths in the,
in the truck.
I'm good at this.
Who knew?
This is crazy.
So, Tobias, we got the
reindeer on the truck.
Now, we're gonna
sacrifice one of them.
Why do you call
it sacrifice?
It's a respect to
the reindeers.
This is not an industry.
It's respectful.
It's a cultural,
respectful thing.
I've never seen something
this big dying before.
So, I mean, I feel
a little bit nervous and
like, emotionally weird.
How do you react when
you, when you kill,
kill one of them?
Me, I'm calm, but I'm,
I'm humble to them,
when I kill them.
Oh, you
can hear
the blood's
coming out.
We're gonna
skin it.
Skin it?
Yes.
We have to.
We, we're gonna
remove the fur and
we take out
the intestines.
And then we're
gonna eat her.
Take her back and
eat her.
Yes.
All right.
Good.
You guys are quick.
So what are you
doing now?
I'm tying a knot so-
Why is that?
Yeah, it goes
to the stomach.
If you don't tie
a knot on this.
Yeah.
The things
she has eaten
will come up
when you pull it
out of the stomach.
Oh and ruin the meat.
Ruin the meat.
Oh, that's
a horrible noise.
She's eaten a lot.
Yes.
Oh there.
There you go, whoa.
Oh, wow.
Now we're going to take
up some delicious parts
we're going to
eat tonight.
The tongue.
The tongue.
After a long days work,
we loaded the carcass
into the van and
headed to Tobias' house
to eat where I met his
lovely wife Eva Lisa.
Okay.
So, what do we have here?
It's a fillet from
the reindeer and
Eva Lisa's made a sauce.
It's just olive oil and
lemon,
with some juniper berries
and some red onion.
Just eat it straight.
A reindeer gazpacho.
Yeah.
Can we call it that?
Yeah.
Basically.
Really tender.
Almost melts
in your mouth.
How good.
By law, you have to be
a Saami to be a reindeer
herder, unless,
you marry into it.
Like you did.
Like I did.
Yeah,.
Clever, you can eat this.
I see now...
I mean it's a hard live,
but we get good food.
So how, how are reindeer
herders then?
They're nomads,
and they go by,
they don't care
about the clock.
It's impossible to set
you know let's meet up 2
o clock, they don't care.
You can tell when you
go into houses here,
if there's a reindeer
herder living there.
So would you say this
is a reindeer
herder's house?
Yeah, it's kinda
half-half.
If you look this way,
it's absolutely
a reindeer's house.
And no paintings
on the wall?
No paintings on the wall,
and I mean, some ugly,
old furniture.
It's not really
that important,
because you don't
stay indoors as much.
Okay, this looks great,
a lot of food.
So, what do we have here?
Well, we've got, boiled
heart, boiled liver, and
boiled tongue.
And also some, potatoes.
One potatoes, yeah.
Meaty, huh?
Mm okay, tongue, I need,
I need to get the tongue.
Always have cow tongue
on our Christmas
smorgasbord.
Yes
This is better.
Okay, so, if you had
to choose one dish
to define Sweden,
what would that be?
Palt.
No, I think
it's pancakes.
No, they got pancakes
all over the world.
They doesn't have palt.
No, no one has
eats that shit.
He made palt once and our
son was like a year or
somrthing.
And Nicholas, actually,
got some stuck
Nicholas our son, he got
some stuck in his throat.
Coughing.
And Eva-Lisa hit
him on the back.
And then.
It was like a piece
of rubber bouncing.
With that recommendation,
I had to go find the
really traditional dish
of northern Sweden, palt.
Hey, palt.
So, this is palt.
You have it with butter.
You have it with milk.
Basically, it's a potato
dumpling filled
with pork.
Eating palt leads to
something we call
palt coma.
It's a word
everyone knows
in Sweden, actually.
It's carb overload
basically.
It's a potato dumpling.
Kevin, I think you're
a bit stingy on
the bacon, eh?
We do love milk
as well here.
Swedes are some of the
few people in the world
that can process this
stuff except for infants.
We love it.
I just learned a new word
from the team here and
it's, it's stogie, and
that's what palt is.
It's really thick.
It's like, just goes
down your stomach like.
That's when you go
into a pelt coma.
I'm done.
Sweden has strict
alcohol laws.
Buying alcohol over 3.5%
can only be done in
the government-run
Systembolaget and
nowhere else.
It's not always easy to
find a Systembolaget.
And they close early,
3 pm on a Saturday and
they're entirely
closed on a Sunday.
So, if you miss
opening times,
bars are your best
bet for a drink.
We heard about
a new bar in Umea,
called Open/Closed.
That was also
a deli by day.
It was opened by Emil
Sweden's bartender of
the year in 2013.
Emil is well known for
his innovative use
of locally foraged
ingredients in
his cocktails.
Thanks to a tradition
called Allemansrätten,
every man's right.
Anyone in Sweden is
allowed to forage for
wild foods and flowers.
So we headed to the woods
to gather ingredients for
his M90 cocktail,
inspired by the
camouflage pattern used
by the Swedish
Armed Forces.
So, you're a bartender.
No.
Or would you call
yourself a professor of
cocktails and foraging?
No, I hate, no, no,
no, I'm a bartender.
I hate the word
mixologist and
all that shit.
So, why do you
go foraging for
the ingredients?
Can't you just buy
them in the shop?
Yeah I could, but, but it
feels more authentic and
more genuine to really go
out there yourself and
it's the most organic
way to do it.
It's a big country,
Sweden, and
we have a lot of forests.
So it's,
it will never run out.
And it's a big thing in,
in Scandinavia we,
we're like,
new modern cuisine, but
if you look back, Swedish
people has always,
always been foragers.
Like my grandmother and
so on.
Everybody is,
has they're foraging
in their own spots.
Oh, yeah, like you mean,
like my mom has her spot
where she picks her
centralls, and she would
Yeah.
Like she would never
tell anyone where that-
No.
spot was.
Yeah,
every family has
their secret spot.
Exactly.
My father has his
own cloudberries and
he probably won't tell
me until his death bed.
On his death bed.
Yeah.
He's like, son.
Probably.
I'm not gonna tell you
I love you, but I,
I'm gonna tell you about
the cloudberry spot.
So what am I looking for,
Emil?
We're gonna get
some spruce.
We're gonna dry
this out and
turn it into a powder.
Then we'll have
a nice specimen.
A nice specimen.
A nice tree up ahead.
Yes.
If you just peel
this off, try it,
it has some
acidity to it.
Acidity, yeah.
Yeah, in the beginning.
Mm-hm.
And then you get
the actual flavor.
Mm-hm.
So, we will be using
this to, to dry it up and
use it in the M-90
cocktail.
How much do we
need to bring?
We're making
a lot of drinks.
Yeah.
I think we need loads.
Yeah, we'll take loads.
We'll take
the whole spruce.
Take the whole tree.
Yeah.
Then we headed back
to the bar to make
the M-90 camouflage
cocktail.
Emil has dried out the
spruce in his dehydrator
and ground it into
a powder with an equal
amount of dried mint.
There's the powder.
So we start off
with the rum.
Some green Chartreuse to
get the horrible note,
and then we made
a camouflage syrup.
And the camouflage syrup
is actually tonka beans
and spruce
cooked together.
Some lemon to get some
acidity, egg white to
get some foam on it.
So, the powders
we made earlier.
You have powder is,
dried out plow
berries and vanilla.
Then you have
raw cacao from
a chocolate factory just,
here in called Jenna's
Chocolate Factory.
And the green one is
the mint from spruce
that we did before.
You drink it from
different angles and
would taste differently.
There you go, Howard.
An M-90.
So, basically,
it's three drinks in one.
Yeah.
Man, that's good.
I gotta have this cup.
I gotta have
the stuff with it.
Yeah, feel that horrible
notes from a Chartreuse.
Yeah.
Yeah? Say. Work?
So good, my good man.
Fucking good, yeah?
Yeah, it's fucking good.
I really love the stuff.
The, the,
with the spruce.
Yeah.
Nice foraging,
nice drink.
Drinkmaster.
Oh, no.
Customers.
Customers.
Uh-oh.
The new Nordic is
basically sourcing
ingredients and
products only from
the Nordic countries.
We have like
an expression that you
dig where you stand.
It's food cooked on
a ceramic plate.
Whoa, this is
totally medieval.
It's scaring me.
