Kräftskiva

While in the US Rasmus got to experience a very Maryland tradition – Crabs and Old Bay. Actually twice. And everytime someone (or many people) would ask – “do you eat crabs in Sweden? Do you have crab fests?”. The answer was yes we eat crabs, but not like this, but we do have a crayfish party or Kräftskiva. And a few weekends ago one of our Swedish friends hosted one so that the displaced Swedes could have their crayfish and also share them with the rest of us here in Norway.

Is a Kräftskiva like a crab fest? At both you eat crustaceans. At both it takes a good bit of work to get any meat. And both are during the late summer. However. A crab fest is messier (thanks to the Old Bay). A Kräftskiva has funnier hats. A crab fest has newspaper on the table. A Kräftskiva has swedish drinking songs (about bumble bees of all things?). If there are any sides while eating crabs it may be something like corn on the cob. A Kräftskiva has sides of salads, bread, and cheese.

A Kräftskiva (pronounced kreft-hweeeva) started because early in 1900’s you could only harvest the crayfish in the fall. Often (and advisably) you have them outside (due to the smell). There are cray fish decorations – plates, napkins, bibs, hats, and man-in-the moon lanterns. When you eat the crayfish, you suck / slurp the juice out of the crayfish before eating it. And Swedes are really into their drinking songs, so there were plenty of those. My favorite one is sung to the song of popeye the sailor man and is translated something like
“we are small bees bzzz bzz, we are small bees bzzz bzzz, we are small bees, we drink the sting of a wasp, we are small bees bzzz bzzz”.

I was worried that because many people weren’t Swedish they wouldn’t get into the silliness of it – the hats, the bibs, the songs, but everyone did! Although we would have to sing each song 3-6 times just so everyone got it.

What's a fun summer tradition for your family?

The table before everyone arrived

The crayfish - ready to eat.

Pierre Loic and I with our funny hats.

Rasmus Shopping at Walmart

Rasmus, Me, and Tesia at Englanders

The Deomolition Derby

Personalized Hershey Bars. Rasmus is now a fan of hershey bars. It turns out the only place to get them here in Norway is at the Movie Theater.

What to show a Swede?

What is the American Experience? Rasmus, my Swedish boyfriend came home with me during my most recent break. What do we do here that I haven’t seen in Norway or Sweden? Rasmus had his own list (taken from watching American TV and Movies). This included:

-eating a Twinkie
-eating at a diner

The strange part about these two is that they were also on the list of a Norwegian friend of my Aunt’s.

I made sure we did both. At the diner (Englanders in Oakland, MD) Rasmus discovered Western Omelets and decided that they were good (actually he couldn’t stop talking about them) I tried to steer clear of the normal tourist things. Instead we did everything from going to a demolition derby to going to an Amish country fest to going to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water to playing miniature golf in a cave. Not to worry – we did do some normal stuff – hanging out at the lake, going swimming, going into DC for a day, and going shark tooth hunting down in southern MD.

What would you show to a Swede coming to the US? What is unique about where you live within the US?