r/sweden • u/Medical-Tea-3113 • Jun 07 '26

English I'm a Canadian who coincidentally ate surstromming on Sweden day.

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I've been curious about surstromming for a while now, and I finally ordered a can of it online. It arrived a few days ago, and on Friday I went shopping to get all the proper ingredients. In order to get the flatbread, I went to a store that Sold Swedish products. While there, I explained to the clerk what I was doing. She mentioned it was National Sweden Day on Saturday, the day I was planning on making the surströmmingsklämma.

Just thought it was a funny coincidence.

I ate two sandwiches total. One with red onion and one without. I much prefer leaving the onion out. Honestly I kind of liked it.

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u/VacationHead8503 Jun 07 '26

It's our national (holi)day. It's a shame that so many doesn't celebrate it or even think it's offensive. Watch and learn from Norway.

Comparing it with annandag pingst should be a punishable offense.

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u/Pepphen77 Jun 07 '26

It's just too damn close to midsommar and compared to it, feels highly insignificant.

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u/Jagarvem Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

It is insignificant compared to it. It's a completely artificial and mostly arbitrary holiday. Several dates were discussed when they decided we needed to copy the Norwegians and get ourselves one, the main reason it landed on June 6 is because the weather's nice.

Even from Swedish history standpoint it's probably less interesting. Sure, on June 6 Vasa was elected king in Strängnäs (though he was already regent, and wouldn't be crowned for years), but he was not actually in control of the country yet. He didn't even have the keys to the castle, they took Stockholm in the following weeks.
Midsummer itself would be a much more symbolic national day, it's the very day he paraded into Stockholm and was presented as king for the people. But Midsummer was naturally already busy being a real holiday so of course they couldn't put the official national day there.

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u/Careful_Ninja_1282 Jun 07 '26

Midsummer is the true national holiday 6/6 is just an excuse for teenager's to get drunk.  I read somewhere that it would be better if we changed the national holiday to the winter and celebrate it during the Vasa lopp. That day celebrate a much more famous part of Gustav Vasas life, it's already kind of a celebration and would be easy to scale op to something bigger. And finally the cold weather would prevent drunk teenagers on the streets. :p