Swedish Christmas [Hardcover]

Catarina Lundgren Astrom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2003

Swedish Christmas is not just a cookbook but an inspiring book full of Christmas memories, recipes and tips of how to make Christmas enchanting. With its atmospheric photographs and engaging stories, it can be used as the ultimate handbook to a magical Christmas or simply be enjoyed as an armchair book. All the recipes have been adapted to the American kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter Astrom, photographer and artist from Sweden, has been featured in Time Life Book 60 Years of Photography. They live in New York. NY.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 156 pages
• Publisher: Bokforlaget Arena (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9178431778
• ISBN-13: 978-9178431779
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #779,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Scandinavian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious, easy and unusual recipes!, November 2, 2004

By 

J. L. Lundman "Jellund" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Swedish Christmas (Hardcover)

I love this book! I received it as a birthday present and, although it is still just over a month til Christmas, I have already made a lot of the recipes in it. There is a photo for each recipe which is always a bonus and the Christmas stories are funny and well-written. The recipes themselves are absolutely delicious! I have just made the allspice ribs, last week I made the gingerbread sponge cake, just so easy to cook and eat! I would recommend this even to those not celebrating Swedish Jul as the recipes are good year round.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book however, recipes don't seem to be tested., December 14, 2009

By 

Maria Eriksson (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Swedish Christmas (Hardcover)

I was given this book as a gift from my Swedish mother-in-law. It is really lovely to look at and I take it out every Christmas to use as reference for our annual Julbord (Christmas feast). The book gives the reader a nice taste of the author's Christmas traditions but doesn't go into too much detail about the origins of the customs which doesn't bother me too much because I only have to ask one of my husband's family members if I have a question. I agree with another reviewer that it would have been nice if the author had included the proper Swedish names for things.

Some of the recipes are really good, like the mumma (which is a concotion of a few types of beer, ginger ale and madeira), the toffee bars and the pink caramels, however several recipes seem to not have been tested. One year I tried making the gingersnaps and something was very wrong-- I had to throw the whole batch out. Today I was drooling over the photo of the coconut tops only to find that there's no coconut listed in the ingredients or mentioned in the recipe (if the Swedish name for the cookies were listed I could look it up!) There are other typos as well and oddly translated words which are rather annoying.

The author seems not realize that many Swedish ingredients can be found at specialty shops and IKEA and relies only on what can be found in American grocery stores for her recipes. This is a plus for someone who doesn't want to be bothered with ordering ingredients however, I think that anyone interested in creating a Swedish Christmas would want it to be as authentic as possible and wouldn't mind searching for some items. She mentions that she left out some fried cookies (struvor) because it's too hard to find the proper tools to make them but that's entirely untrue. You can buy rosette irons right here on Amazon.

Finally, I think that a list of sources at the back of the book would have been a great idea. As I mentioned, there are plenty of Swedish specialty shops on the internet where you can get anything from Julmust (Swedish Christmas soda) to lojrom and it's a shame that those things were left out of the book

All in all I really like this book a lot but the fact that some of the recipes have mistakes is a big no-no to me, hence only three stars.

5.0 out of 5 stars Appreciation of Swedish Heritage, December 27, 2007

By 

Maude E. Norman - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Swedish Christmas (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. My husband's family emigrated from Sweden, and I want my children and grandchildren to appreciate their Swedish heritage. I used this book for our "Swedish Christmas" this year. The grandchildren had a great time with the girls playing St. Lucia and serving their parents hot chocolate and Lucia buns for breakfast in bread.