The Holiday Smorgasbord

Smorgasbord, as the menu of just about every Swedish restaurant is eager to point out, literally means "bread-and-butter-table" -- which is like calling Conrad Hilton an innkeeper. Bread and butter are, indeed, standard items of the groaning bord, but since the time of Eric the Red and all those other fellows with the horns on their hats, these noble staples have been supplemented by an infinite cornucopia of tummy-tempters. In days of old, to celebrate the return of daylight after months of darkness, a doughty Norseman would throw open his hall and invite his fellows to come bearing whatever food they might garner -- fish from the icy lakes, elk from the forests, wild leeks from the rocky hills -- until the mighty tables were packed solid with a vast variety of food. So it's hard to see just how or when or why this classic food fest was saddled with the strange misnomer it now bears.

To the young male Scandinavian, smorgasbord has always been a social proving ground. He watches the girls as they help themselves to the smoked salmon, the herring salad and the sprats, the brown beans, the tiny meat balls and the smoked tongue. And he concludes, as his ancestors did, that the one who eats with the heartiest appetite will have a hearty appetite for life's other goodies, too.

Before planning the food for a holiday smorgasbord, it's a good idea as part of your general orientation to understand the Scandinavian etiquette of drinking. Generally at a native party there are no cocktails offered before the eating begins. The conversation is somewhat restrained until someone takes the first nibble of food, and then the skoals begin as each person swallows the first glass of icy cold aquavit in one gulp. Sacred to the smorgasbord tradition is the fact that one never drinks alone. Every drink must be a toast. It isn't necessarily a talk-toast. Usually the toast is stimulated by a mere meeting of eyes. You catch a girl's glance as her eyes turn toward yours and then you both lift your glasses of aquavit and bottoms up. If you're really smitten with the young lady, you raise the glass toward your heart. If you're a corporal in the army, following strict protocol, you raise the glass to the height of a certain button on your uniform. If you're a captain or a colonel, you raise the glass to the button corresponding to your exact rank. One of the oldest smorgasbord traditions dictates that each man must drink at least as many toasts as there are buttons on his jacket. As your thirst mounts from the helpings of salty, tangy comestibles, you switch from aquavit to ale. Finally, after innumerable rounds of hot and cold foods with perhaps a wine course served here and there, you are offered Swedish punch. If it's homemade Swedish punch, it may contain rum (100 proof), arrack (150 proof), straight alcohol (200 proof) plus a little water for flavor. It might be noted now that the Swedes -- sensible people -- are the greatest coffee drinkers in the world, consuming even more than U.S. coffee quaffers. Just as you're leaving the party, a solicitous Swede might take you aside and caution you about the possible aftereffects of your festivities. Don't drink any tea, he'll warn you solemnly, it might make you nervous.

Smorgasbord in your own apartment is a major project, and shouldn't be planned for less than 10 people in view of the serious effort that must be spent in arranging the self-service accommodations, buying the large assortment of luxuries and cooking the hot foods. The sheer animal merriment a smorgasbord table generates more than repays all the effort that goes into setting it up. And this effort can be reduced so greatly by the incredible variety of ready-to-eat gourmet foods now available that the actual labor required may be encouragingly small. For instance, if you want to, you can set up a complete smorgasbord including 20 or 25 delicacies without preparing a single solitary food item. All you need is money and a can opener. You can buy anything from Swedish meat balls to elk steak with chestnuts, from sliced Westphalian ham to smoked frogs' legs. While such items can't be found at every run-of-the-mill neighborhood gesheft, they are available at specialty food stores, supermarket gourmet shelves and Swedish delicatessens. Many delicatessens will supply fresh salads and appetitizers, and will often arrange meat on platters tied up in a cellophane ribbon. For large parties caterers will suply linen, silver and glassware.

[recipe_title]The Table[/recipe_title]

Smorgasbord in restaurants is often only the first course of the meal. For your own party the smorgasbord table should be the beginning, the middle and the end of the festivities. It should be covered with snowy white linen. There should be no large areas of unused table space. Around the center there should be deep bowls of salads, placed in deeper bowls containing cracked ice. At the perimeter there should be flat platters of meat, shallow oval dishes of fish appetizers, relish dishes and whopping containers for the celery hearts, scallions, radishes and olives. Spaces between platters may be filled with ferns or any appropriate seasonal decoration. The front of the overhanging tablecloth should be festooned with holiday garlands. Distribute napkins generously. Don't set the oval dishes right on the tablecloth but place them on larger plates or platters lined with paper doilies. Give your table class by using handsome platters for the meat, gleaming salad bowls, a brass urn for the coffee, bright champagne buckets for the bottles of iced aquavit and colorful casseroles or chafing dishes for the hot foods. While every bachelor doesn't own a complete table service of Royal Copenhagen Porcelain, there should be sufficient chinaware so that each guest has the use of three clean plates, one for the fish appetizers and seafood, one for the cold meats and salads and one for the hot foods.

Before you go smorgasbord shopping, the following tip may be useful. At a smorgasbord the average person eats about one-fourth or one-fifth a normal full size portion of meat or seafood. For instance, a 4 1/2-ounce can of bonito fillets in oil would be a standard single portion if it were served as a main course. For your smorgasbord shindig, the same can of bonito fillets will take care of approximately five people. Naturally this guide isn't a stricture. Your guests may insist on eating every last shred of ham, and may completely avoid the wild boar roast. For these common aberrations there are no rules except the comforting thought that if your guests are honestly hungry, they will be sufficiently adventurous to try the herring salad, the smoked oysters or even the diamond back rattlesnake. At the average home celebration you should plan on 12 to 20 items besides small relishes.

[recipe_title]Bread and Butter[/recipe_title]

There must be at least three different kinds of bread, and they should be the dark earthy types with a sweet lingering aftertaste that invariably compels you to come back for more and more as you wend your way around the table. The breads may vary from delicate wafers of rye and wheat as thin as paper (mostly produced in Norway) to those huge Swedish hardtacks called knåwckebröd, as wide as a big hi-fi record, with a hole in the center. A more modern version is represented by such products as Ry-king, crisp rectangular wafers, light and low-caloried. Another exciting wafer bread is Finn Crisp. It has a zestful sour rye flavor like the best rye bread you've ever tasted. Then there should be the dark moist pumpernickel in which the Danes specialize. If you're in a large city or near a Swedish bakery, you'll be able to get the delicate limpa bread flavored with a delightful blend of anise, orange peel and cinnamon. The butter should be unsalted, cut into rather generous pats, or (if you have the time) should be shaped into balls or curls, piled high pyramid fashion alongside the bread baskets.

[recipe_title]The Herring Flotilla[/recipe_title]

The herring family (which includes sardines, incidentally) is always the beginning of the smorgasbord parade. There's something about the tantalizing flavor of herring that lures the laziest, and satisfies the sharpest, appetite. Herring varies from tiny tidbits in wine sauce to fat matjes herring bought from the barrel. The list of herring in cream sauce, dill sauce, lemon sauce and in oil, the rolled herrings, Bismarck herrings and herring salads goes on indefinitely. You'll want the imported brisling sardines, and here again the varieties are stunning, including brisling sardines in sherry wine, garlic sauce and dill sauce. While the herring family dominates, other delicacies of the deep should be represented. Thinly sliced smoked salmon and sliced sturgeon are usually on hand. For gourmet palates, offer such magnificent delicacies as smoked oysters or mussels, fillets of mackerel in white wine, jellied eel and smoked cod liver. Particularly recommended for fish fanciers is the Basserman brand Blue-Char fish, put up in 7-ounce cans in wine aspic. It should be chilled before it is unmolded from the can. Finally a big platter or bowl of cold, freshly cooked shrimp left in the shell will be a colorful center of attention and will keep holiday hands busy and happy preparing the shrimps for dunking in sauce.

[recipe_title]Meat Platters[/recipe_title]

Meat platters are revealing of one's skill in assembling a smorgasbord table. First of all, you shouldn't attempt to imitate the huge decorated cuts covered with chaud froid and aspic that one might see at a hotel culinary show or on the buffet table of an ocean liner. Nor, on the other hand, should the meat look like slabs of cold cuts served at a free lunch counter of yore. Rather, the smorgasbord meat platter should be gemütlich-- neat, not gaudy--and should show real finesse in the choice of meats offered. Take ham, for instance. Instead of the ordinary boiled ham, serve if possible something like the thinly sliced Westphalian ham or genuine Smithfield ham or one of the imported canned hams in sherry or burgundy. The thin slices should be overlapping, decorated perhaps with a generous bunch of watercress at each end of the platter. Or, the ham slices might be rolled cornucopia fashion, filled with a mustardy cole slaw or filled with watercress, and neatly lined up on the platter for easy serving. Most of the meats at a smorgasbord are smoked. Swedish salami, the type without garlic, should be sliced (concluded on page 78)Holiday Smorgasbord(continued from page 36) paper thin. One of the most natural candidates for a smorgasbord table is thinly sliced smoked turkey. Corned pigs' head made into a jellied loaf known as head cheese is a traditional Swedish meat for the holiday season. In large city gourmet stores you can buy canned game such as wild boar, venison, pheasant and mallard duck. If you and your guests are game fiends and appreciate the rich high flavor of these viands, you can now obtain them for about $1.50 to $2.50 per pound, cooked weight. Naturally if you have your own game, frozen or hanging in your club refrigerator, you'll want it for the smorgasbord. Alongside your meat platters, arrange relish dishes filled with such liveners as senfgerken (imported cucumber pickles with a mustard flavor), burr gherkins, pickled English black walnuts and the Swedish preserved lingonberries or the German preiselbeeren, both tart cousins of the cranberry.

[recipe_title]Cheese Tray[/recipe_title]

First on the cheese tray is the Swedish gjetost, a chocolate colored hard cheese made from caramelized goat's milk. Gjetost has a sweet intense flavor that must be "learned" before it's appreciated. There are many caraway-flecked cheeses of which Scandinavians are very fond. They may be bought in imported or domestic versions. Danish munster or Dutch gouda cheeses are both fine recruits for a smorgasbord. Cut a few slices off each cheese, and leave the remainder standing with a knife or cheese slicer nearby.

Yeomen of the holiday table who want to put their own personal signature on a smorgasbord are always eager to create some of their own dishes for the feast days, Playboy's smorgasbord recipes which follow are all designed for 10 smorgasbord (snack size) portions.

[recipe_title]Herring and Apple Salad[/recipe_title]

In a large salad bowl combine 3 cups diced boiled potatoes, 1 cup diced canned beets (well drained), 2 sweet red apples (pared, cored and cut into dice), 1 1/3 cups diced matjes herring fillets or herring tidbits, 6 tablespoons salad oil, 2 tablespoons vinegar and 1 tablespoon finely chopped scallion. Toss thoroughly. Let the mixture stand in the refrigerator for at least one day before serving. Salt may be added if necessary, but the salt of the herring is usually sufficient.

[recipe_title]Salmon and Egg Salad with Capers[/recipe_title]

Boil a 1 1b. salmon steak until tender. Drain and chill the salmon. Remove bones and skin, and break salmon into chunks. In a mixing bowl combine salmon chunks, 3 hard-boiled eggs cut into dice, 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, 1 tablespoon drained capers and 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill. Toss lightly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn salmon salad into a bowl lined with lettuce leaves. Sprinkle a few capers over the top of the salad. Garnish the salad with wedges of tomato and large ripe olives.

[recipe_title]Swedish Meat Balls[/recipe_title]

Break two slices of stale hard white bread into small chunks. Soak the bread in 1/2 cup light cream. Set aside. Boil 1 medium size potato until soft. Force the potato through a ricer to mash. Chop 1 medium size onion extremely fine. Put the onion in a saucepan with 1 tablespoon butter and slowly sauté until the onion turns yellow. In a deep mixing bowl combine the bread and cream, mashed potato, onions, 1 beaten egg, 3/4 lb. lean ground beef, 1/4 lb. lean ground pork, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Mix very well until no pieces of bread are visible. Shape into balls 1-inch in diameter. Place the balls in a shallow baking pan. Place the pan in an oven preheated to 475°. Bake until the meat balls are brown, about 20 minutes, turning once.

In a large saucepan melt 2 tablespoons butter. Stir in 2 tablespoons flour, blending well. Gradually add a 10 1/2 ounce can of condensed consommé, stirring with a wire whisk until smooth. When the sauce comes to a boil, add the browned meat balls. Turn the flame very low. Cook, covered, for 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally. Stir in 1/4 cup light cream. Bring to a boil. Turn off flame. Add brown gravy color very slowly, stirring until the sauce is a rich brown color. Season to taste.

[recipe_title]Swedish Brown Beans[/recipe_title]

Soak 1 lb. white pea beans in 2 quarts cold water overnight. Chop 2 medium size onions and 2 medium size cloves of garlic extremely fine. Cut 1/4 lb. bacon slices into very small dice or chop the bacon with a heavy knife until it is minced. In a large heavy stewing pot combine the bacon, onions and garlic. Cook over a slow flame, stirring frequently until onions just turn yellow. Do not brown bacon. Add the beans together with the water in which they were soaked. Add 1 pint additional cold water. Bring to a boil. Add 4 chicken bouillon cubes. Cook the beans slowly, keeping the pot covered, for 1 hour. Add 1/3 cup dark molasses, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 tablespoon prepared mustard and 1 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet. Add salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook beans over a very slow flame for about 1 hour more or until tender. Watch the pot carefully, stirring the beans on the bottom to avoid scorching, keeping the flame low all the time. Swedish brown beans should be prepared the day before the smorgasbord and should be reheated just before serving.

Maybe you've noticed we have intentionally avoided all those charming little Scandinavian accent marks over the word "smorgasbord" throughout this article. That's because we've naturally used the word quite a few times and we were afraid the pages might get to looking as if someone had shaken pepper all over them. Also, few people in this country pronounce the word in the authentic Swedish manner, anyway. But for those few purists who insist on having every accent in its proper place--here you are: ..·..·..·..·..·..·..·.. Season the article to taste.