As if we hadn't eaten enough already, our excursion in Gothenburg, Sweden was a food tour! And rather than being a walking tour, this one relied on a bus ride between stops, so we couldn't even build up a lot of steps to counteract the calories.
It was a lunchtime/afternoon tour, which was good in one way, because the description did say the portions were larger than just small tastings, but it was also not so good, because the description said the portions were larger than small tastings....we had a dinner reservation at Osteria D'Ovidio in the evening.
Once we got on our way, I remembered our last visit to Gothenburg in 2023 on Seabourn Ovation, and the huge construction projection not far from the port. It is still ongoing. I'm sure there has been progress made, but don't ask me what.
Our first stop was at the Feskekörka, or Fish Church. This is a fish market/food hall/restaurant complex that is built in the shape of a church. The architect was so taken with the shape of Norwegian churches that he created a similar design for this one.
The market has been here for many years, but the building had been deteriorating, so, according to our guide, it was closed for a number of years and completely rebuilt. I think it only reopened a couple of years ago.
We were a fairly large group for a food tour, 37 people, so we were split up in order to all get seats for our first tasting of Swedish food, a cold fish and seafood plate. We had a selection of really tasty foods. I was already familiar with much of it, as this kind of thing was always standard fare at home, but I can imagine some of our group members looked askance at having to pull apart and peel their shrimp! The plate consisted of: boiled whole shrimp, herring, smoked salmon, shrimp in mayo on baguette, and Swedish Vasa flatbread with cheese. Larry and I finished everything and found it all delicious!
Our next stop was at a large food hall. It was so hot outside - approaching 30°C - that rather than having our tasting inside, we went out to the edge of the parking area under some trees. Too bad; it would have been nice to be able to check out some of the vendors inside.
We had tastings from two of the vendors. The first was a cheese shop that sold all varieties of cheeses, some from Sweden, and others from the more famous cheese sources like Denmark, Holland and France. We tasted about 7 different kinds, from all of these countries.
Our second vendor told us the very interesting history of his company. It was established to bring local meat producers' products directly to the public because the large grocery chains that were more interested in volume than quality and small producers didn't have the resources to do this themselves. So this company receives and sells through their shop all sorts of artisanal local foods, and some will sell out very quickly each week. They have not been around for very long, and already have increased their sales volume by huge amounts year over year. Swedish people seem to be very happy supporting local producers with high quality offerings.
The plates that were offered had quite the variety: dry cured ham, similar to prosciutto, with local pure honey, Swedish meatballs, a small wiener and locally made mustard, roasted beef and smoked pork,
After that course, we hopped back into the bus and were driven to the Haga neighbourhood, which is one of the oldest in the city, filled with wooden houses. Now there are also lots of cafés, restaurants and specialty shops as well.
Our stop here was at one of the bakery/cafés, where we had traditional cinnamon buns. Fortunately these were not like the huge North American version, but thinner and covered with pearl sugar instead of sticky icing. It was also delicious with a cup of coffee.
After this progressive meal, we were all pretty full and happy to get back on the bus to return to the ship. Now the question was, would we be hungry enough for our Italian dinner at 7:30??? The food post is coming up next, so you can find out.
