Food journal number 62: Wallenbergare

Because the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef cooks them, and because of the fact that IKEA makes millions selling them for lunch, "Swedish meatballs" is an often-heard term. There are even recipes online under the label of Swedish meatballs — even if they're really just plain meatballs.

I wonder if it's the addition of milk or cream that makes these meatballs "Swedish"? Or maybe it's because of the fact that they're usually eaten with the sweet lingonberry jam? Many of the ground meat recipes I've encountered here are cooked milk or cream, and are served with lingonberry: Kålpudding, kåldolmar and pannbiff are examples. I guess one exception is the taco. Swedes eat lots of tacos. And though they eat it with sour cream, they spare the jam. Gracias a Dios!

Another dairy-combined, jam-partnered ground meat dish is the Wallenbergare. Very "Swedish" as the dish name derives from The Wallenbergs, a prominent Swedish banking family, the inspiration of the dish is purportedly French. One story goes that Marcus Wallenberg's father-in-law, who was a chef, named this fancy dish for his son in law. In another story though, the Wallenbergs arrive from France to a local Swedish restaurant and request "food as they have it in the continent". The chef whipped up veal patties and served it with pommes duchesse, or oven-baked mashed potatoes.

Today, there are many ways to prepare and serve the Wallenbergare, not least in a typically complicated French style. Some recipes insist that the veal (meat from a young calf) be ground twice, or even thrice. Some insist that, instead of bread crumbs, the inner part of a French baguette should be the filler. I made it easy for myself, and followed this recipe below (one that doesn't require breadcrumbs, either). I didn't care for mashed potatoes, but if you do decide to make them, the creamy type probably goes well with this (also creamy) patty.

Wallenbergare (recipe from Annas svenska kök)

500 g ground veal
2 deciliters whipping cream (40% fat)
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
dash of ground white pepper
2 Tablespoons butter for frying

1. All ingredients should be cold. Mix the ground veal with the cream, a little at a time. Then mix in the yolks one at a time. Salt and pepper to taste.

2. Form into 8 big patties, set aside on some wax paper.

3. Fry, some at a time, in a pan with butter, for 3-4 minutes on each side.

(I read in other sites that the patty should remain light in color, not dark brown. But as you can see from my own Wallenbergare, it was already too late when I read about it.)

4. The dish is traditionally served with mashed potatoes, peas and — yup! Lingonberry jam.

Red is the color of the New Year

I too wonder what took me so long, but finally, I signed myself up as a municipal blood donor last week. The first step was a blood test. Since I haven't heard from the hospital yet since then, I assume that I had passed the blood donor criteria: they test for blood type and levels of hemoglobin, and make sure that donors don't have hepatitis, syphilis, HIV and HTLV. Now I'm just waiting for a letter when I can give my first regular donation.

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) estimates that yearly, about 100,000 persons in Sweden need blood transfusions. It could be a case of an accident, a difficult childbirth, an operation, or chronic illness. It is estimated that about a third of all transfusions directly help save lives in acute situations. In short, a lot of people need blood. And for this, you can trust the Swedes to have an organized solution for the demand.

Basically, when you sign up as a blood donor, you agree to do it on a regular basis – up to three times a year for women and four times a year for men, granting that you are healthy at the time of donation and have read and signed a health declaration. This system is not unique for Sweden, but something that I am new to. Blood donations in developing countries are far from this systematic. In the Philippines, information about blood donation is scant outside of universities where the Red Cross can have week-long blood drives. Otherwise, relatives of people who badly need transfusions have to rally up their friends and colleagues to donate blood at the hospital in question, on a one-time basis, to replace the blood in the hospital bank. I can imagine that this system is taxing on relatives and that the blood supply is low. If there is an organized donation system and there is easily available and clear information, not only can more people be recruited (there were more than 400,000 regular blood donors in Sweden in 2009), but hospitals can also control which blood groups are running low in the municipal blood bank, and mobilize the donors with that blood group.

So I would like to make a case for seeking information yourself, if you're interested in becoming a blood or organ donor wherever you are. When it's time for me to donate my first contribution – the blood center will send me an e-mail – it would be my first time ever to donate blood. What partly hindered me before was a cluelessness, and perhaps also laziness to get information. I didn't know weather I could donate blood at all since I have had dengue fever as a child, but apparently, this was a false thought. Even if you've had tropical diseases, this does not automatically mean you're not qualified for donation. As with tattooing, piercing, etc., it just depends when you've had it. With tropical diseases, you just have to wait 6 months before donating. If you're sick, you have to wait until you're well for two whole weeks. If you've had a vaccine, a tattoo, acupuncture, or went to the dentist, you have to wait one or a few days. As long as you're between 18 and 60 years old, pass the blood test making sure that you don't have any seriously transmittable diseases, and granted that you're not anemic yourself, you can, at least some times of the year, donate blood. I also found that the information / interview session I had, which was obligatory for new donors in this Swedish system, was very informative and answered all the questions I wanted to know about blood donation, including how I should take care of myself – with regards to diet, drink and activities – before and after the donation.

An organized blood donation system also has a solution for laziness. If you can't come to the blood donation centers at the hospitals for some reason (like having no car), the blood donation centers will come to your area. There's a schedule for so-called Blood Busses, which you can see in the Swedish site, geblod.nu (literally "giveblod.now"). The bus is where I signed up to be a donor and where I had a blood test.


It's a kind of New Year's resolution of sorts. For all my stalling – and as with all resolutions – it's actually not that hard to do when you get to it.

P.S. Added 7 February 2011. I was playing with the blog layout and found out that at least one of the drop down menus had a wrong link to it (October 2010 became September 2010, so there were two September archives). I've corrected it now, but if you guys see anything else wrong, leave me a message (Note, there is no November 2010 archive). I'm trying to fix my layout to make it more user- and navigation-friendly. But it may take some time :-)