Midsummer in Sweden

In Sweden, the summer solstice is a magical time. In Stockholm, the lavender twilight lasts until 11 p.m. with the day breaking again around 2 a.m., while above the Arctic Circle the sun doesn’t sink below the horizon for weeks.

Once dedicated to the Norse fertility goddess, Freya, the longest day of the year is now celebrated on the weekend closest to June 24 th , the feast day of St. John the Baptist. The three-day official holiday begins on Midsummer Eve when friends and family gather to adorn the maypole with birch leaves and wildflowers. Girls and women make crowns of flowers and everyone dances around the maypole, singing summer songs, before feasting on pickled herring, new potatoes and aquavit.

Midsummer would not be Midsummer without strawberries, preferably Swedish strawberries, served with sugar and whipped cream or in jordgubbstårta. This Swedish version of strawberry shortcake consists of layers of vanilla cake alternating with layers of whipped cream and sliced strawberries, topped with more whipped cream and decorated with whole berries. Indeed, with its sun-kissed warmth, sweet taste, heart shape and bright color evocative of sex, sun and life itself, the strawberry is an apt symbol of the summer solstice and the joyfulness with which Swedes embrace this too-short season.