During my childhood, from time to time when talking about the family's Norwegian heritage and with a certain look in his eye, my father would loudly burst into singing something akin to the following verse:

Ten thousand Swedes tore through the weeds, chased by one Norwegian.

He would then of course flash a huge smile, pleased with himself.

No matter how many times I would ask or how hard I tried, I could never learn from him what -- if any -- history was behind the verse, other than it being a humorous tale of course.

While it has taken me many years to piece it together, it seems that back some thousand or so years ago (more or less, as I am not certain of exactly when it may actually have been), there was a region of eastern Norway bordering with Sweden that provided it residents with a relatively quiet and good quality of life.

The exceptions to the peace and tranquility these Norwegian villagers typically enjoyed was when their life style was disrupted by invading hoards of hungry and desperate Swedes whom were seeking food.

It is thought that this was not so much due to a lack of food in Sweden at the time, but instead must have been the result to poor hunting, farming and cooking skills possibly exhibited by Swedes during that period of history.

In fact the only way the Swedes seemed to know how to improve their lot was to try to capture a lone Norwegian cook and force them to do the cooking for them. However, even on those rare occasions when their attempts were successful, this was something that did not always fare too well, as the cooks did not adjust to captivity and would cook accordingly.

These particular Swedes eventually seemed to learn they could not rely on captured Norwegians to do their cooking for them, so they were forced to turn to engaging in more frequent foraging raids into less populated regions of Norway, since such raids into more populated areas were prone to failure and also brought major retaliation raids against them as well.

There were times though when, sometimes for several months at a time and even in the less populated regions, there were either relatively few or no such raids.

The Kjottkaker Raid

Then one day however, during a period when there had been no raids for at least six months in the region and, while the Norwegian villagers of one little village were busy elsewhere in the fields and woodlands engaged in farming, foraging and hunting as well as fishing in the nearby Fjord (deep, mountain-side lake), one of the largest hordes of Swedes ever assembled invaded.

Yet this raid was unlike any of the others, where usually they would just try to take whatever food and livestock they could lay their hands on, this time around they were mainly after the village recipe for making Kjottkaker (Norwegian Meatballs).

As it turned out, the village was very well known across the land for its Kjottkaker, in fact it was this very recipe that many other Norwegian villages and families either copied or made variations from for making the dish.

These recipes were handed down from cook to cook, often times just by the verbal telling or by the show and tell how-to method while preparing and cooking the meal. The problem with this was when a cook would die without having passed on the recipe to someone else in the village in these ways, then the exact recipe would die with the cook.

A solution was to keep written documentation of the recipe, which -- since they did not have paper then as we know it -- they wrote on dried tree bark and kept it safe away from fire or water so it would not be damaged or, even worse, stolen.

The Swedes got word of this and set out to steal the written recipe and did so in force.

It just so happened that on day of the raid, the village cook was cooking up a big batch of Kjottkaker and, the smell of it was carried aloft by the light winds blowing in an easterly direction.

Smelling this, the army of Swedish raiders tore the tiny village up in a hungry fit, eventually managing to find the recipe, taking it along with all the food they could carry -- including what had been in preparation as well as was still being cooked. They also stole the livestock housed or otherwise left unattended within the village.

With the recipe finally in hand, they quickly began to retreat back for home in Sweden, thinking they would be safe once there as this was but a small village with not so many people to make a successful retaliatory strike in order retrieve the recipe.

Cook's Revenge

What they had not counted on was what a battle they would have with the one person left alone that day in the village, the cook.

Despite having been beaten unconscious and tied up, because the Swedes did not know anything about tying good knots either, when the cook came to an hour later they were able to free themselves easily enough.

Not wasting any time to round up the other villagers however, the cook made out in pursuit of the Swedes on their own, taking certain shortcuts known only to the Norwegians who were more familiar with the area.

Surprising a small band of the raiders whom had the recipe in hand and also appeared to have gotten lost, the cook was able to overwhelm them. In a tug of war battle with the Swede holding the bark parchment, the recipe was torn in half.

This was no problem for the cook, who of course knew the recipe by heart and, deciding that it was best to get away before more Swedes came to assist their comrades in arms, headed back to the village by the same paths used in catching up with the raiders.

For their part, the Swedes felt it was better not to pursue either and instead try to make the best of a bad situation.

Thus this might help explain why Swedish Meatballs (i.e., Koettbullar, in Swedish) are not only usually very dry, but also merely half as big as well as half as good as the original recipe for making Kjottkaker (Norwegian Meatballs) theirs was based upon, since it ended up they were only able to get half of it for all their effort on that day so long ago.

 

*Note*: Current version of the evolving fable I originally cooked up several years ago and have told from time to time, especially when I use to cook and serve up a meal of my version of Norwegian Meatballs or Norwegian Meatloaf.