For several weeks, my friend Cotton has been promising me a gift in recognition of my forthcoming trip, and that I’m currently learning Swedish. She wouldn’t, however, tell me what it was until we met today with a group of friends at The Oaks at Neutral Bay.

What a pleasure it was, discovering she had found a book called “Swedish Food” at a nearby “op shop”, which she’d picked up for the grand sum of one dollar. Although inexpensive, I’d class it as “absolutely priceless”, as it contains “200 selected dishes of good swedish food”.

Swedish Food is the work of the Home Economics Department of the publisher in collaboration with Mrs. Emmie Berg, graduated from Cordon Bleu, Paris, and former resident of Montclair, NJ, who has compiled and edited the recipes especially for this book.

The book contains many of the recipes you might expect, including more varieties of herring than you thought were humanly possible. These include “Pickled Salt Herring”, “Herring Salad”, “Marinated Fresh Sardines” and “Fish In Aspic”. Surprisingly, the book also contains recipes you might not instantly associate with Sweden such as “Stuffed Cabbage Rolls” and “Pork or Bacon Pancake”.

I don’t know if they ever sold it in Sweden, but it was obviously popular for a while back in the 1960s, as the book proudly proclaims, by the the eleventh edition, they had already printed 105,000 copies.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually cook anything from the book, as every meal looks like a recipe for early onset heart-disease, but it’s sure to be a talking point for Swedish class on Tuesday night. Thanks Cotton.