Well, I am sure this will become a regular feature, being that I am going to have to visit these places pretty often. I actually find very little strange about these markets because people might mistake me for being an actual Swede what with what I buy:

No, that is not salt. Its sugar. They sell these things at Ikea, source of all things Swedish to the outside world.

The Scandinavians though not famous for their culinary prowess have cornered the market on one thing. These little take away salads:

Red beet salad, that I eat everyday:

Americans won’t go near this stuff. You mention beet salad and they act like you said beetle salad or something. But me, I eat right along. Man, I hope those are beets…

Another two:

This somehow approximates a salad my mom makes at Christmas time that my father and I eat in 8-10 seconds. Its a miracle it even makes it onto the table. It was also kind of a leap of faith because I have no idea what the label on the outside said. It had dill on it and something I ate at the mess hall this past week had dill on it, so I figured it couldn’t be bad. And I am pretty sure Swedes don’t eats anything like brains. At least I hope not.

And to close it out, plain old potato salad:

See Mom, see? I got to the supermarket. Oh and to add to it, I usually eat this stuff with this bread:

I went around the supermarket looking for this thing, not realizing it was actually in a section for high fiber bread. I am so boring.

But for every thing at the supermarket that I love, like the shrimp salad, there are things that make me scratch my head:

The Swedes have so many good sweet things. Why of all things chocolate chip cookies and from Maryland? Maryland? I stood there in the supermarket wondering why this would be an enticement to buy this thing? What? Do you love Babs Mikulski? Do you drive really really really badly? Do you call Baltimore “Balmer”? Are you planning on visiting Prince George’s county any time soon? For the uninitiated they called PG County “The Long Island of the 1990s” because all of this weird stuff happened there at that time. Anyway, that’s what I thought of when I saw those cookies. Babs Mikulski and PG county. I also love how that company listed on there is their exclusive supplier for Scandinavia. I do not travel oceans to Scandinavia to see the words “Maryland” anywhere. Rest assured I will never try these cookies.

Also, Ramlosa. There should be an umlaut over the o and I’m sure there is some crazy Swedish way of pronouncing it, but I do love the Ramlosa. I am like really really really boring because I seek out fiber bread and pretty much can only drink water. Just drinking water all the time is really boring, so I have to get flavored water, which usually tastes really bad. Somehow Ramlosa manages to make it taste good. I got some judging eyes from a coworker recently when I bought a pear flavored Ramlosa, but whatever. He doesn’t know that I can only drink about 5 substances in the world.

Ok, anyway, a lot of explaining about that Ramlosa. Though this is a very good tasting Ramlosa, I find it a bit curious:

Until I came to Sweden, I didn’t know cactus was a flavor or what perhaps the flavor of a cactus might be. I drank the water and can’t really describe it, but it tasted green, which makes no sense, but there you have it.

Maryland Chocolate Chip cookies and cactus flavored water. Thus far the culinary curios I’ve found here in fine Sweden.

Again, may I repeat:

MOM, SEE, PROOF I DO GO TO THE SUPERMARKET.