The Swede – An In-Depth Study (VI)

Happy International Waffle Day everyone! Did you know that International Waffle Day was invented in Sweden? Did you know that International Waffle Day exists? Well, it does, and it’s today March 25th (note, if you are reading this on a day other than March 25th, please take this moment to change your computer’s date and thus move time back so as to celebrate this most important of holidays in a timely manner).

But that’s not what this blog post is about. Well, not exactly. This post is about Swede’s and their spectacular religious ignorance. You would expect a country with a Lutheran state church, a state church that counts 75% of the Swedish population among its members to have at least some basic knowledge about Christianity. But nope, this country is really filled with a bunch of closet pagans (and cheers to that!)

For example, on Fat Tuesday (or Tjock Tisdag in Swedish … actually that's a direct translation and I don't think that's actually used) Swedes eat something called Semla.
When you ask someone “why do you eat this today?” the question is followed by awkward and confused silence. Note, this is coming from me, who doesn't know his New Testaments, from his Old Testaments, from his Korans, from his Torahs, from his Necronomicons, but I at least realize that the eating and partying and drinking associated with Mardi Gras isn’t just an excuse to party and take my shirt off … I mean an excuse for people (not me) to take their shirt off.

At any rate, lets get back to International Waffle Day. On this special day, known in Swedish as våffeldagen, millions of Swedes ingest millions of delicious waffles. When you ask a Swede why, again, your only answer is a prolonged silence. Upon consulting Wikipedia.se I found my answer. The name of the holiday is actually a weird perversion of the words vårfrudagen, which roughly means “Day of Our Lady” or something. Yes, this holiday is meant to commemorate the day that the Angel Gabriel informed Mary that well … “God thought she was on the pill, but he’ll totally send her a monthly check to help with the diaper fund and whatnot. Of course, that’s contingent on whether his band takes off or not.”

In Swedish the terms vårfrudagen sounds a lot like våffeldagen, and as near as I can tell it … that’s all there is to it.

As a complete aside, I never knew 9 months before Christ’s birth was a date that anybody celebrated. In fact, in high school I felt I was super creative for performing a French report on a fictional holiday that I called “Le Divine Erreur” (The Divine Mistake). I pulled the following image from my archives:

Translation: My name is Jesus. Yeah, that's right, I speak 3 languages! All poorly! Who wants to touch me?

As yet another aside, Swede's don't eat waffles for breakfast typically. I've been told that some people treat this as their main and only course today ... although that has yet to be confirmed. Also, waffles are sweetened usually with either Lingonberry or Cloudberry jam as well as some whipped cream. I could be wrong, but using syrup may be grounds for excommunication from the Swedish church.

And now, with all that said, happy våffeldag everyone, eat up!

Note: my pal Felix, a much more avid waffle enthusiast has chronicled this day better than I over the past two years. His 2008 post is here, and he beat me to the punch with this 2009 post.

And as a final aside ... no, I didn't have any waffles today.

For earlier chapters in my ongoing study, feel free to follow the links below:
Part I+II
Part III
Part IV
Part V