Culinary Adventures In Sweden

With every foreign place comes foreign foods. Sweden of course is no different. So far I've been only able to eat 'finger foods' and things that I can eat straight from the container as our shared kitchen has no pots/pans/silverware/plates/etc and I'm WAY to cheap to go buy any of that stuff for my own use. So, as a result the diet has been a bit repitive and oddly disruptive to my digestive track. There is a small grocer about a block from my front door. It's kind of a gray drab discount type of place that carries only the bare essentials. Since I live on a side of town that's not dominated by students, the store mainly caters to the locals. As a result all the labels and everything are in Swedish. I've made several trips there now, each time seeking out something new, or trying to find something specific that I have a hankering for. My diet to date has been the following:

Breakfast - musli and yogurt (yoghurt)

Lunch - 2 slices of heavy multi grain bread with two slices of cheese and three pieces of lunch meat (unsure of animal due to packaging and limited swedish)

Dinner - not much really. Sometimes I'll have some milk or something, but with my schedule still being really screwed up from the flight I haven't had much of an appetite at night.

The only other thing I have eaten since I got here was a calzone type thing from 7-11 (of all places). As a side note, the 7-11's over here are nothing like the one's we have at home. You can get a gourmet coffee, calzones and freshly baked breads and pastries, fruits, etc. They're basically like bakeries and small grocer marts all in one.

Anyways, I had been wondering why my stomach had been so upset this week. At times I have felt just awful. It really hasn't made any sense. Well, tonight (or this morning, or whatever the hell time it is) in one of my jet lag sleepless nights that have become the norm this week I decided I wanted a little 4am musli. I went to the fridge, grabbed my yoghurt and began pouring in some musli. It was at this point that I thought "gee, maybe I'll read the side of this carton to see if I can make out any of the Swedish", that will be fun I thought. So, thinking to myself...Turkish yogurt huh, wow, this stuff is so much thicker than the yogurt I'm use to. It really sticks to the musli. Then, upon further inspection I read the words kebab and dip sauce followed by 10% fett. I think to myself, hum, 10% fett, I wonder if that means 10% fat? Sure enough....10% fat in my yogurt. Apparently I purchased the stuff that is used in kebab's and gyros. It's basically sour cream. So, looking back on the week I have basically eaten a quart of sour cream with some grain mixed in. Houston, I think we've found our problem.