I admit it. I’m late – way late – to the Ikea party. I’ve been snooping around a little bit and I’m still not sure what all the fuss has been about home-wise. As for food, I’m not all that interested in the whole food court thing and the legendary meatballs – not into ground meat these days, with good reason.
But that little food shop deal, after you check out. Now that caught my attention. Mostly because you need to do some serious language intensive just to figure out what the heck you might be about to ingest.
Knackebrod flerkorn?
Saft flader?
Inlagdsill?
Skorpor kardemumma?
You know, I’m kind of wondering how big a call there is for all this stuff. I mean, I was the only one even in there. Is there a run I’m not aware of here on cloudberry jam, lingonberry concentrate,
prawn cheese spread in a tube, salmon pate in a tube, or those meatballs – frozen (froz kottbullar, for the record)?
To be fair, there were some interesting cheeses and mueseli and those classic Swedish crackers. So I tried some sas pepparrot — horseradish sauce and sylt flader & apelsin — orange and elderflower marmalade (no corn syrup!) and chocolate (that turned out to have a big Kraft on it), and jelly rats (gummy bears in another life).
As for that list of stuff: multigrain crispbread, elderberry concentrate, pickled herring and cardamom crisp rolls. Actually sounds like dinner?
Oh, you are missing the Daim Cake (almond biscuit cake layered with bits of chocolate Health Bar-like candy) with coffee. And if you are really hooked on the cake you can bring home a Daim bag
for late-night nibbling.
I’m annoyed by the housewares, too. In New Haven they seem to move quickly from the store to college dorm rooms and grad student apartments, to the curb, to the dump. I swear, the New Haven dump must be 75% Ikea these days. And you can find better, cheaper housewares at Goodwill. Or, if you really like the Ikea things, you can find them at Goodwill or on Craigslist too!!
But would it be out of line to suggest that you were, perhaps, missing your sense of humor on that particular visit? I’m not a fan of the food or food products, but I can see the appeal. Kind of like a Korean bakery? Nostalgic and comforting for some, exotic and wacky for others . . . or a mix of the two . . .
http://www.ctbites.com/home/2009/10/20/an-ikea-smorgasbordno-assembly-required.html
Admitted — I hate shopping, except for food, which I love. Ikea is supposed to be all about utility and savings (done with taste). Why is most of the food extraneous stuff, especially useless in this day and age to people who are trying to make ends meet? These are the exact people in Ikea. So I don’t get it. (But OK, the orange elderflower marmalade IS nice.)