Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura
Last week, Sweden’s official Twitter account
The revelation provoked strong reactions. Along with pop music and clean, minimalist design, tasty meatballs slathered in gravy and lingonberry jelly seem as Swedish as the blue-and-yellow flag. But there’s a very strong case for this counterintuitive origin story: The Swedish dish now enjoyed worldwide likely traces back to the travails of Swedish King Charles XII, who spent years in the Ottoman Empire (which included modern-day Turkey).
Charles XII was an unlikely food ambassador, to say the least. After gaining the throne in 1705 at the age of 15, he cared little for the good things in life. Instead, he was laser-focused on defending the borders of his inherited empire. After defeating the joined kingdoms of Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland-Lithuania, he turned his attention toward Russia and achieving a decisive victory over his enemies. Voltaire dubbed him “the Lion of the North,” and others called him “the Swedish Meteor” for his skillful warmongering. But how did the Swedish Meteor introduce the Swedish meatball?
The meteor, as it happened, fizzled….
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