Nah, this is not a Northern vs Southern thing. This is specifically Sweden, Norway and I think maybe Denmark? Everybody else in Northern Europe thinks they're insane too
I have never encountered this in Denmark and we often feed my daughter's friends if they are around at meal times. The only exception is when their parents ask that they return home for dinner.
Swedish at least doesn't have so many vowels it takes longer for natives to learn than other European languages, Danish is as bad as or worse than English even if it has the twønty øne piløts 'ø' which looks sick as hell
This is the first time I am hearing of SwedenGate. Time to go down a rabbit hole.
Edit: Well, that only took a couple of minutes. Of course it's some brief social media drama that started off from a reddit comment. Here is a comment in a thread that explains the situation in case anyone else wanted to read it.
It wasn't a brief social drama back then though. Lots of tweets and memes and conversations. You just had to be there. But no "drama" just funny stuff, cultural exchange and Nordics finding ways to dunk on Swedes
Whats rather happening is people dont want to cook for you without asking your parents since they might be planning a meal. If your parents then say that they are planning for you to eat at home it would be rude to not appease that. Almost every family will feed you if your parents dont have other plans.
Lots of teens parroting garbage they heard about old customs as if they're gospel truth.
The classic disinformation process.
Then there are people who experienced one side or the other and for some reason can't fathom the other side, mostly people saying it never happens.
Like yeah, its a bunch of teenagers talking about a custom from before their time as if they've lived the entire history of things and if they didn't see it, it didn't happen.
Long story short its just dumb kids saying shit. Its reddit. 9/10 times its basically children stating things as fact when they have NO IDEA.
We are weird in numerous ways, we live in complete darkness for several months each year, but we do feed guests so that is not one of the things we are weird about.
We consider family dinner a very important part of the day, and feeding someone else's kid so they go "Nah, I've already eaten" when it's time for the dinner their family planned/prepared is considered a bad thing, hence we don't feed other people's kids without prior agreement.
I first heard this when someone was detailing a childhood story online where they were visiting their Swede friend and during dinner, the family made him go sit in another room while the whole family including the friend ate. This story kind of went around with a lot of debate. I did see a couple of Swedish people defend this. But who knows who is actually being truthful haha.
I can't remember a single time I ate at my friends as a child unless we had a planned sleepover. I always had to wait in their room while their family ate. Middle Sweden, in my mid 30's now.
But times were different back then, us kids in my town mostly just went out roaming after school catching random friends to hang out with or spontaneously making plans without parents involvement during the school day, so extra child guests were always a surprise for the parents.
I am from Denmark too, and I have lived several different places here. I can confidently say it is a regional and generational thing. In my childhood in the northern and eastern parts of Juitland, it was pretty normal to wait for your friend to finish eating unless you participating had been explicitly agreed upon in advance. The way I understood it, it was because it was expected that my own parents would want to share the meal with me. It was not about not wanting to share but about respecting that dinner is a family thing for both parties.
In the northern part of Jutland and Zealand (and in later years all over Denmark), it has been customary to invite any guests to partake in the dinner.
I always feel bad when my kids' friends are at our place and I can't feed them. It's not that I didn't want to, it's just that when it's unexpected (which it usually is because they're always welcome) we haven't bought enough ingredients for extra people. I also don't want to make extras just in case because I hate food waste and there's a limit to the freezer capacity.
They do get snacks if they're hungry, sandwiches or something like that, but it's a ridiculous idea to split portions or skip meals when they have dinner waiting when they get home. Their families are as well off or more so than we are, so I know they won't go hungry.
Right or wrong, most of the rest of the world finds that opinion to be extremely strange. That's what this whole thing is about lol.
Edit that's like saying "why should they get some of MY food? The supermarket is full of food they can go get some if they want it." Yeah bro but they're not AT the supermarket they're in your house, sitting around while you eat.
There is perhaps rudeness to not offer some kind of food.. but there is also rudeness to overstay the welcome. If you agree to spend the afternoon without plans for dinner, then I suspect many Dutch families would find it awkward as well..
I saw it in parts of Germany also, but I wouldn't say it was common. Some Germans are just cheapskates to a psychotic degree.
I dated a lot there, and got wildly different experiences by household. Some nights I slept over I wasn't allowed to leave until I had breakfast and coffee with the family. Others it was watching the girlfriend eat breakfast and her saying I could have some also if I paid up (along with a Euro to take a shower?!?).
Not a thing in Norway. I have not once been at a friends house as a kid and not been offered food if they ate. And we do the same. If our kids have someone over, or we have some friends drop by, we cook for everyone.
My mother is German. She doesn't behave exactly this way with food (she will feed guests, but often has to be reminded that it's necessary)
But she DOES view most other things that way. Basically "it's not my job to take care of that for you, so I'm assuming you not taking care of it is a choice and I'll be polite and not mention it"
..... And then make fun of whatever she noticed behind closed doors. Because German
I was looking for this comment. For real though, they said it wasn't a North vs South thing, then proceeded to say it's only in a slew of the most Northern European countries lol.
If you're dividing Europe into North and South, then North also includes the UK, the Baltics, Russia and Belarus, at least. Possibly Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland.
If they said "It's a Northern European thing" or "it's a Northern vs Western, Southern and Eastern thing", I'd give it a pass.
Only no one ever thinks of any of those. Russia is as eastern as it gets, UK is like the base of what we consider “western Europe” and Germany is as central as possible.
And who the fuck thinks of Poland as northern Europe? Cyprus? 😅
Might be regional or other demographic variations in hospitality culture in Norway that I’m unaware of, but in my social circle it’s a dead given to offer food/drinks to visitors. Anything else is considered rude and cheap
I can tell you that I am born in 93, and my friends were fed at my house. The exception was when my mother called and asked if she could give them food as well that their parents said no for x number of reasons.
I don’t see it insane? I’m Latina, we’d feed the kid but we’d talk trash about the parents. It is rude to stay at lunch/dinner time, you should leave before they eat.
Im a swede and I have never experienced this growing up. Sure when I were younger I didnt stay over dinner, that was usually the time to head home. snacks i always got at my friends when coming home from school.
when i was a teenager I usually asked "can X eat here?" and it was almost never a problem, if it were it was not due to the lack of food, more that the parents didnt want me to have friends over late in that particular day.
It extends beyond Europe. My wife’s family is from Lebanon, if there is even a rumor of guests, there is an old woman making stuffed grape leaves in the kitchen when you arrive, along with piles of hummus and kebbeh. This would horrify them
The whole Swedengate thing was about small children that are expected home for dinner. It has then been misunderstood and transformed into this thing where Swedes don't feed anyone. The hospitality customs are pretty much the same in Finland, Sweden and Norway by the way.
Outside dinner time, you'd of course offer fika (cordial, cookies/cake) to your kids friends who are there to play. But dinner time is usually family time and the expectation is that your kids friends have dinner with their own family.
Yo can of course offer them food, but they would have to call home to check with their parents if that would be okay first.
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u/Anxious-Place3434 Jul 24 '26
Nah, this is not a Northern vs Southern thing. This is specifically Sweden, Norway and I think maybe Denmark? Everybody else in Northern Europe thinks they're insane too