Fullkorn ≠ full of corn

Growing up in my family means that you appreciate root vegetables, all things cabbage, and herring (unless you’re my sister and deathly allergic to fish). We come from hearty Eastern European stock where fresh citrus was a delicacy. Lucky for me I was born in California and, with the exception of my years in Boston, never knew hardships coming across produce. I knew that moving to Stockholm, after a summer of being spoiled by the California farmers markets, meant that I would reconnect with these old familiar foods. I also knew that along with the beets and cabbage would come an assortment of mushrooms that I had only seen overpriced on the shelves of shmancy grocers. I’ve partaken in most of the produce but have yet to tackle the wall of canned and preserved fish that constitutes a very large refrigerated section in every market I’ve perused. We’ll report on the adventures of canned, fermented, and spreadable fish another time.

 

For those who know me, it’s not a surprise that I’m writing about food. I love food. And for those who know me even more, it’s even less of a surprise that I have a love-hate relationship with food. My list of food allergies is long. Most relevant to my new Swedish life: my list of food allergies is in English. In the U.S my nemeses soy and corn hide in most prepared and packaged goods; they hide under aliases in long lists of ingredients. I expected that they would be hidden much the same here, and they are. But, what I didn’t expect was that the words to describe these simple and common foods would be so hard to come by. The cereal and bread aisles are filled with containers advertising fullkorn, much to my surprise and relief fullkorn does not mean full of corn. In fact, the word korn might not even mean corn. Some online sources (1, 2) tell me that it means barley or grain (therefore fullkorn means wholegrain), but others like this one tell me Korn: grain, kernel, corn, barley, barleycorn. So what happens if we search the word corn for its Swedish translation? Well, we get the following: säd; majs; kärna; liktorn; spanmål, korn. Fortunately eating corn doesn’t send me to the hospital, just makes me feel lousy for a while.

 

Comments

[rommy]

Yeah...amazingly local, sustainable produce is more the norm in Europe, but oddly enough Sweden seems to not follow the norm so much.

Not as many farmer's markets here. I'm going to as many local markets as I can find (Ostermalms Saluhall and Hotorgshallen), but I'm often reading the ingredients on the packages when I do go to the supermarkets.

The good thing is, lot less HFCS here and the cattle appears to be pastured and grass-fed rather than industrial and corn-fed. Luckily, the history of the meat in every package is written on the package.

But alas it's not the progressive food culture we had in the Bay Area...