taste

‘It’s a magical place, and not just because of the hotel.” Standing outside the greenhouses at Högbo Brukshotell, two hours north of Stockholm, Stefan Johansson is talking about far more than hospitality. The former head chef, now responsible for sustainability at Högbo, has spent much of the past decade helping reshape the way this corner of Sweden grows, cooks and thinks about food.

The catalyst was disarmingly simple. Years ago, a journalist asked Johansson why he was cooking the food he was cooking. Like many ambitious Swedish chefs, Stefan trained in Stockholm’s top restaurants, where ingredients from around the world were only a phone call away. The question lingered long after the interview ended.

“Before, I wanted food to be spectacular; I didn’t really care where it came from,” he says. “Then I closed the window of where we source from down to the region. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.” Instead of looking farther afield for inspiration, he began looking closer to home.

Högbo Brukshotell sits in the former Högbo ironworks, a quiet pocket of forest, waterways and historic buildings north of Sandviken. The area’s industrial past is still visible in its old manor houses, smithies and mill buildings, but since the factories fell silent in the mid-19th century, the woods have reclaimed their place. Walking, cycling and cross-country ski trails now lead into the forest, while the old bruk buildings house cafes, workshops and small businesses.

Ingredients that once arrived at Högbo from far away are now grown here. The Made in Högbo project began with lamb, with animal rearing and butchery brought in-house. Vegetable production followed. Now greenhouses sit alongside kitchen gardens, producing ingredients for the restaurant and creating opportunities for people who might otherwise struggle to find work.

Refugees from Myanmar helped establish some of the early growing projects. New arrivals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have joined the initiative, splitting their time between Swedish language classes and work placements, their influence visible in the rows of papaya, bananas and other plants rarely associated with Sweden. There are plans for an aquaponics system that will combine greenhouse cultivation with tilapia fish farming. In farm buildings there are now also a bakery making sourdough and cakes, a microbrewery run by one of the chefs, a dairy making fresh cheeses, and an excellent deli.

Högbo isn’t the only place asking these questions about food provenance. Over several days travelling through Gästrikland and neighbouring Hälsingland in eastern Sweden, I discover a network of millers, fishers, distillers, cheese makers and chefs connected by a shared idea: that food should reflect the place it comes from.

At Gammelstilla, an old ironworks has become a small whisky distillery. In the village of Gästrike-Hammarby, The Old Mill is now an award-winning restaurant run by Bogdan Ioan Gheorghe and Ellinor Andersson, with a tasting menu that features a roll-call of local producers alongside surprising ingredients such as the invasive species Japanese knotweed.

At Bergmans Fisk, in Norrsundet, low islands scatter across the bay and the Baltic stretches east towards Finland beyond the wooden smokehouses. The business is run by a seventh-generation fishing family whose connection to these waters stretches back more than a century. Inside the smokehouses, salmon hangs in neat rows, a slow process, refined over generations.

But for traditions – and the business – to survive, they have to evolve and diversify, Dennis Bergman explains. In 2020, the family opened a waterfront restaurant overlooking the bay where much of their fish is caught. We enjoy a smorgasbord of smoked salmon and böckling (hot smoked herring) piled on dark rye crispbreads. The family also operates a travelling fish van serving coastal communities and is planning a small hotel: new ventures that will help secure the future of old skills.

Driving north through the deep pine forests and lush fields of Hälsingland, I keep spotting hand-painted signs for potatoes, eggs and strawberries. Outside red-painted farm buildings, honesty boxes sit beside stacks of produce.

At Teve Kvarn, a mill south of Järvsö, I meet Anna Larsson, a seventh-generation miller. She sources grain from roughly a 150km (93-mile) radius, selling seed to farmers and then buying back the grain to ensure high-quality flour production. Only a handful of mills of this type remain in Sweden. Anna points out her newest machine – it was installed in 1930.

Beside the traditional wooden mill, shiny stills are visible in a tall glass building. This is the Tevsjö distillery run by Anna’s husband, Jonas, producing vodka, gin and aquavit using grain from the mill. The distillery runs on hydroelectric power generated from the nearby stream, and has already increased its production capacity more than 10 times on the strength of the products’ popularity – while creating 10 new local jobs.

At nearby Järvsö Lanthandel, I meet chef Tobias Annerhult who runs the general store and restaurant. For Annerhult, local sourcing isn’t just desirable, it’s his entire food philosophy. “I only buy salt, pepper, sugar and oil,” he tells me. “I don’t use stabilisers. Nothing gets thrown away; that feeds the creative process. Our philosophy is to grow through limitations.”

In a climate where vegetables arrive in abundance for only part of the year, preserving is essential. Annerhult pickles, cures and ferments local produce, including meat for charcuterie.

Tonight, we too have to work for our dinner, taking a cooking class that Tobias offers for private group bookings. We have brought produce collected across the region: flour from the centuries-old mill; cheese and potatoes from honesty boxes; fish from a family that has worked the same waters for generations; and vegetables from local greenhouses.

Together, we make fermented pea pancakes with sweet preserved apple and salty local goat’s cheese; bouncy fresh pasta using Anna’s wheat and eggs from Tobias’s chickens, served simply with burrata-style cheese, brown butter and garden herbs; and warm cake with the first of the season’s rhubarb.

It’s a meal that tastes all the better for knowing the stories and people behind it. Combining preserved and fermented ingredients with the season’s freshest produce harks back to traditional approaches to cooking and eating. Today’s chefs are reclaiming that philosophy, and the results are delicious.

It perhaps helps answer the question that changed Stefan’s career all those years ago. Why cook this food, in this place? Because when food truly belongs somewhere, it becomes a way of understanding that place too.

The trip was provided by Visit Sweden. For more information visit gastrikland.se and destinationhalsingland.se. Högbo Brukshotell has doubles from 1,995 Swedish kronor (£155) B&B

This article is part of a series in which we speak to individuals who – due to a unique job, location or experience – share an insight they wish others could know.

What’s the one thing people should know? We’re all thinking differently about the same thing.

As a child, Constantina Makridakis, a 28-year-old jewellery designer from Greece, thought everyone could taste voices and names.

Her father’s name, Nicholas, tasted like caramel-coated chocolate, while her mother’s name, Maria, was pasta with prawns.

The tastes were usually pleasant; the name Paul, a rich chocolate liquor, was particularly delicious.

“I thought everyone had this ability,” she explained. “It seemed natural to me. We talk from our mouth, so it made sense [that] we also taste names and voices … it seemed connected to me, so I didn’t ask anyone about this.”

That was until one day in her late teens, when her sister, Amelia, whose name tasted sweet – often in the form of syrup or jam – told her about a documentary on synaesthesia.

After watching it, Makridakis realised she had a form of synaesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which sensory experience triggers another.

Music as colours

The experience of synaesthesia can vary significantly. For example, American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish experiences the names of days of the week as colours, numbers and shapes.

Hungarian composer Franz Liszt is also believed to have been a synesthete, experiencing musical notes as colours. In 1842, he is said to have confused musicians in the Weimar orchestra when he instructed them, “Gentlemen, a little bluer, if you please!”

Janina Neufeld, a researcher at the Centre of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet (KIND) in Sweden, said that although it may seem surprising for non-synesthetes to hear about Makridakis’s experience, most of us can relate if we think about our own internal sensory associations.

“When we listen to music, most people can relate to the idea that sounds could be brighter, smaller or higher up in space … this is to some extent what a synesthete perceives,” she said.

It is estimated that 2 to 4 percent of the world’s population experiences some form of synaesthesia, although the true number may be higher, Neufeld said. Like Makridakis, many do not realise they have it – or that their experiences are unusual.

Neufeld herself experiences a form of spatial sequence synaesthesia, a milder variation that some people may have without realising. At KIND’s offices in Stockholm, she explained her version by closing her eyes and outlining a circle in the air with her finger, which she described as a full year.

On the circle, which she said exists in her “inner space” or mind, the year starts at the bottom of an undulating sphere, which she described as looking like a roller coaster track, and goes counterclockwise, with some months, such as December, longer than others.

Exploring the brain

How synaesthesia works on a neurological level is not yet fully understood, Neufeld explained.

One leading theory suggests that synesthetes may experience less “synaptic pruning” during childhood, a process in which neurons and synapses that are not needed are removed. For example, a child may strengthen the synapses related to a parent’s voice but prune those related to strangers, reinforcing useful connections and removing redundant ones.

The idea is that this pruning process is less extensive for people with synaesthesia, allowing extra cross‑sensory connections to remain. Neufeld, who has studied Makridakis’s case, said researchers have found strong evidence that sensory regions of people who experience synaesthesia exhibit more brain activation and increased interaction between different brain regions.

‘We see different things’

Makridakis said her synaesthesia can be over-stimulating at times. For example, if she is watching a film and an actor’s voice tastes like orange juice, she can find herself distracted by that sensory connection.

It can also lead to unhealthy temptations. The American accent tastes like Coca-Cola, which means when she is in the United States, she can find herself craving the sugary soft drink.

US President Donald Trump’s voice and name taste like melted cheddar cheese to Makridakis, while British actor Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the popular film series, tastes like chocolate milk, while US hip-hop star Eminem’s voice tastes like Cheetos.

Overall, though, Makridakis is fascinated by her perceptions and feels that if synaesthesia is studied more, it could lead to a deeper understanding of the human mind.

At times, she has flirted with the idea that synaesthesia could hold some spiritual meaning, especially since she can also experience a form in which a colour can shimmer around people. Her sister, for example, appears sometimes with a dark green halo around her.

If there is one thing non-synesthetes can learn from her experience, she said, it is that “we’re all thinking differently about the same thing”.

“We should always remember that everyone’s mind is completely different. We could say that the same colour is red; we could call it red, but we see different things,” she said.

Neufeld echoed this sentiment.

“Usually we think that everyone perceives the world similarly … we think sensory inputs are perceived the same, but synaesthesia shows there is more to the sensory experience; there are also a lot of internal associations and experiences that can be very rich,” she explained.

“Synaesthesia illustrates perfectly how differently we actually perceive the world.”

Other articles in the series: