Day 12 Christmas Cookbook

Astrid Lindgren's stories have shaped the Swedish dreams of Christmas, and food often plays a crucial role in them. Finally, here comes a richly illustrated Christmas cookbook based on her world, to which you can always return. Behind the recipes is Fredrik Eriksson, one of our most award-winning and experienced chefs.

My childhood Christmas begins with gingerbread baking with the Bullerby children on the first Sunday of Advent, and then we follow the characters, stories, and Astrid's own traditions through the holiday, with a Christmas Eve feast and Boxing Day celebrations, until Pippi concludes the festivities with a magnificent Christmas tree party. Along the way, we are treated to irresistible recipes for classic dishes and treats. The focus is on Christmas in Småland during the early 1900s, in Katthult, Bullerbyn, and Junibacken, and especially Astrid's own childhood home, Näs. But there is also room for detours to Saltkråkan, Bråkmakargatan, and Dalagatan in Stockholm, where Astrid lived most of her life. Food historian Richard Tellström contributes cultural-historical texts about Christmas food and traditions.

Even lesser-known stories about and by Astrid Lindgren can be found here, as well as several personal texts where she writes about Christmas: "My childhood Christmas was the reddest, happiest, most candlelit, and gingerbread-scented Christmas one could wish for, a genuine old-fashioned Christmas as it was celebrated everywhere in farmhouses not so incredibly long ago." To tell about it is like reciting any old Christmas story, all that stuff with slaughtering and sausage stuffing and washing and brewing and baking and fetching the Christmas tree in the forest and setting up Christmas sheaves for the sparrows and going around the small cottages with samples of the Christmas food. I assure you, it was just like an old Christmas story, all of it."

The book is richly illustrated with images from the books, private photos from Astrid Lindgren's archive, as well as newly taken food and environment pictures of a Näs in Christmas attire.

Astrid Lindgren is one of our most beloved authors. Fredrik Eriksson is one of Sweden's most experienced chefs and restaurateurs. He runs Långbro Värdshus and the restaurant at the National Museum, is a gastronomic advisor to the Nobel Foundation, and has been involved in food development at Astrid Lindgren's World.