During Sweden’s coldest and darkest month, my South African colleague, Andre Morgenthal, and I jumped on a plane to travel north of the Arctic Circle. The plan was to bring the South African braai tradition as far north as possible, into a climate of ice and snow.
When we landed at Kiruna Airport the temperature was -25 °C.
‘First thing first,’ Andre said, ‘Let´s go shopping!’
We took our rental car and drove to the supermarket to buy vegetables, spices, herbs and potatoes. One of the the things that Andre wanted to cook was potjiekos, but instead of using lamb shanks or bokkie we decided to bring in a Swedish local touch. The local butcher stocked reindeer (which doesn’t really look like a springbok), but we found this to be a perfect local addition. Happy with what we found, we headed to Jukkasjärvi (our first meeting point) with the car packed with groceries.
To travel around Swedish Lapland and at the same time experience the beautiful wintertime nature, the best way is to go by snowmobile. We had engaged a group of wine enthusiasts to come along on the trip and also work as our drivers on the journey.
The following day we started early. Unfortunatly we had some problems with one of the scooters, which caused a delay. Andre was really excited (bear in mind that he had never truly experienced snow before). I promise you, this was not a soft start! On that first day we travelled for six hours. We stopped for lunch in the middle of nowhere, it was time for Andre to show off his cooking skills. We decided to make it simple – hamburgers and red wine.
Even though it was in the middle of the day and the sun was shining brightly, the temperature was still around -26 °C. We started out by digging a big circle in the snow and arranged for the braai to be put in the middle of it. On the sides we put out reindeer skins so we could sit down and eat. Andre lit the fire, and while he was busy the rest of us took out a bottle of red.
Even though I´m Swedish and accustomed to really cold temperatures, I didn’t have any experience of tasting wine in conditions like this. We soon realized it was going to be a problem. With temperatures close to -30 °C it didn’t take long before the wine turned into ice in the glass. So, for the first time ever, we served a ‘Pinotage slush’ for lunch!
The greatest challenge for lunch wasn’t the fact the the wine froze – but everything else also did. When we finally had the fire going and the burgers were on the grid we started to chop the other ingrediences: tomatoes, cheese and onions – all deep frozen. This meant that even after we had put our burgers together, we had to place it back into the fire for a quick defrost before enjoying.
After lunch we covered the last miles through the wilderness, and to Andre’s delight we also passed by a family of reindeers on the tracks. When we got to our final destination later that afternoon it was already dark. Tärendö Forest Hotel (a wilderness camp) is situated on the Finnish border, 150 km north of the Artic Circle. This was the perfect place to introduce a true South African braai to the north of Sweden.
I showed Andre to his ‘kitchen’ for the evening – because we were in a traditional cottage, there was no other heating system other than the fire.
While Andre prepared the potjie with reindeer, vegetables, herbs and a bottle of fine port from Allesverloren, the rest of us did our wine tasting inside the hotel. A number of great wines were tasted, including: Stellenzicht, Allesverloren, Kevin Arnold and Babylon´s peak (again, we had to deal with the ‘slush’ factor).
After five hours in the cottage Andre finally arrived – dressed like an astronaut carrying a potjie full of meat. Right there, in the middle of the Swedish nowhere, north of the Artic Circle, we enjoyed the first official South African braai ever made this far up in Sweden. And we all loved it!
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