How To Be Swedish

Originally published November 20, 2009

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.