Soup-day

My brother in law, Per, yesterday published a post in Facebook about one of the Swedish national dishes, the pea soup, as primarily consumed on Thursdays. 

Read this and feel the historical breeze:

During the cold season it’s very common that restaurants in Sweden every Thursday offer yellow-pea soup on the menu. It is served together with boiled lightly salted pork and some mustard. As a dessert we get pancakes, some nice jam and whipped cream. 

Many of us like it – and so do I. 

Today it IS a special Thursday, because it’s the 6th of November; the same date as the battle of Lützen in 1632 (the Thirty Years’ War in Europe ending 1648 – the Peace of Westphalia), where the Swedish king – Gustav II Adolf – was killed. 

It is said that he loved yellow-pea soup, and it’s also told that his death in fact wasn’t that glamorous; because when he wanted to taste the soup (in advance at the cook house), he happened to fall off his horse and was drowned in the boiling very big soup cauldron. (Another story is telling that it was a very foggy day, and that the king got lost from his own soldiers – then captured and killed by the enemy soldiers.)