Saturday - what we’re talking about when we talk about fika
A food diary by Ari Níelsson, entry 2.
Saturday
what we’re talking about when we talk about fika
I think about Charlotte Higgins’ longread on the sudden and wholesale import of ‘hygge’ into the anglosphere in 2016 quite often. Ten or more books on ‘hygge’ were released that year – almost exclusively by London publishing houses – while the Danes she interviewed expressed polite bemusement that the concept should stretch to even one. Time seems to have borne out Higgins’ suggestion that ‘hygge’, included alongside ‘Brexit’ and ‘Trumpism’ in both the Collins and Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year lists, provided a case study for how a certain kind of nativism could be instantiated in the discourse; a shot across the bough from the nascent vibes economy. The apparent irony of importing the trappings of self-sufficiency only holds insofar as we allow ourselves to believe there is an actual philosophy to be learned, rather than a feeding frenzy dreamed up by brand stylists in the pocket of Big Candle. Considered alongside breathless listicles of ‘untranslatable’ words (gluggaveður, utepils, verschlimbessern, etc.) which, more often than not, just display a lack of familiarity with compound nouns or idiom in general, the potency of ‘hygge’ emerges from its vagueness. It’s undoubtedly one of the softer forms of exoticism, but one that insists that since it cannot be defined it must be experienced, and that to manifest this experience the weekend supplement has compiled a handy list of wool jumpers and unbleached hessian rugs. Of course, its other great victory is that it’s more or less impossible to object to any of this without falling into authentocratic, nativist tropes oneself.
The upshot of all this is that there is an inescapable feeling of self-consciousness even when inviting (predominantly) a bunch of swedes to a fika, another loosely defined ‘between-meals’ meal or snack, usually accompanied by hot drinks, the late-afternoon brunch of the north. At least for me. Nevertheless, a handy 7am wake up call provided by a man screaming on my street gave me a decent head start on a spread that eventually comprised blini with cream cheese, hot and cold smoked salmon, the preceding day’s pickles and hjónabandsæla, crushed potatoes with peas, lemon and coriander, a spiced apple and sour cream cake, and a small cheese board. A non-alcoholic glögg of cloudy apple juice with cinnamon, ginger and cardamom pods, and a mulled red wine with mixed spices and orange kept things ticking over amicably until it seemed acceptable to pop the 5€ bottles of crémant and bring out the campari. Having juggled the various practicalities of seating, table space, and crockery more or less successfully nobody in the end, mercifully, wanted coffee. The rhubarb schnapps remains on the shelf, untouched, between the other spirits and the vinegars. Afternoon having spilled gently into evening, and I celebrated another year into my late twenties by being comfortably and sound asleep by the time the clock ticked into my actual birthday.
Ari Níelsson is an artist and writer based in Berlin. You can find him on instagram and twitter.