British cook, writer, and broadcaster, Rachel Khoo, deserves more hype outside the U.K. With her own BBC and Food Network television cooking series, Khoo is also founder and editor-in-chief of online lifestyle magazine Khoollect, and has written so far six cookbooks. Her most recent book, dedicated to Swedish cooking, piqued our interest.
Titled The Little Swedish Kitchen the book was written following Khoo’s move to Stockholm in 2016. But Khoo’s culinary adventures began long before that, in Paris, where she gained a pastry degree from Le Cordon Bleu and a first cookery job concocting patisserie at tea salon La Cocotte. Transitioning from her Little Paris Kitchen to her Little Swedish Kitchen, Khoo experiences different cultures through the tastebuds.
“There are so many things I love about Swedish life,” she shared in an interview with SBS. “Things like ‘Fredagsmys’ – it translates to ‘Friday cosiness’ – which is the term: after a long week at work, you come home and put on some comfortable clothes, make your favourite dish or order a takeaway and have a cosy evening with friends or family.”
Naturally, her book also includes mentions of “fika”—a Swedish tradition meaning: break, usually with coffee and something baked. “There couldn’t be a way of living in Sweden and not embracing fika,” says Khoo. “When I first moved to Stockholm, I didn’t really have friends of my own so the way to break the ice was to ask people to go for fika,” she notes.
Her book explores the nation’s simple and balanced approach to cooking, sampling their best-loved ingredients, and discovers a must-try cuisine that is about far more than just meatballs and cinnamon buns.
