Countries where feeding house guests is not the cultural norm
Cross Italy off this list.
The internet has become obsessed lately over learning which European nations are least likely to feed guests in their home as customary in their cultures — and Scandinavia was seen to be the most skimpy.
Sparking ravenous outrage — partially thanks to comments about not being fed in Swedish households on a Reddit thread about the strange things people did to accommodate another’s customs — web surfers have drastically changed their views on Scandinavia, particularly regarding Sweden.
“Over 100 years of Sweden being seen as such… a good place to live and a screenshot has ruined them,” @luckytilldeathx tweeted.
The northern land — known internationally for self-assembly furniture and house music — has become the subject of a viral Twitter hashtag “SwedenGate” as posts stemming from the less-than-hospitable tradition quickly tailspun into social, racial and political criticism of the nation’s history.
As far as the dinnertime debacle goes, natives of the nation were quick to testify their own personal experiences with sitting out meals.
“Born and raised in Sweden. Never ate dinner in my best friends house, she never ate dinner in my house. Maybe I got a cinnamon bun once in 20 years. Our neighbors had GIANT pear trees with thousands of small delicious pears. I… took one they almost called the police,” wrote @MarBenHouse.
“I lived in Sweden for many years and a friend told me when he’d go stay with his aunt as a kid, she’d send the receipts for food and groceries back to his mom,” tweeted @andrewthesmart.
The #SwedenGate phenomenon even reached the eyes of the nation’s hit singer Zara Larsson.
“Peak Swedish culture <3 :’-)” Larsson quote tweeted the Reddit thread.
But one Twitter sleuth and self-proclaimed “amateur historian and sociologist,” @WallySierk broke down why guests are not very likely to get a helping of dinner in Scandinavian homes.
“In Norse culture, hospitality (providing food, drink, lodging) was a duty of higher status individuals towards people of lower status, but the act of receiving hospitality created an obligation or debt on the part of the recipient,” @WallySierk tweeted about Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
“So, hospitality not only brought honor to the giver, it had the potential to bring shame to the recipient. Norse culture, and as it progressed through the Middle Ages, was incredibly personally violent. People fought duels, violently extracted debts and squeezed renters,” @WallySierk added.
But for other Swedes in the modern day, not feeding your guests is simply isn’t a big deal on either end.
“I remember not really caring at all that I wasn’t being fed — I just continued playing and had a nice, quiet time while the other family had their dinner. It was usually just a quick ‘pause’; probably because they didn’t want to mess up my family’s plans,” Linda Johansson, a Gothenburg native, penned for the Independent.
“I don’t think it is anything to do with not wanting to feed the other child or because it costs money or anything like that, it’s more to do with tradition and wanting to eat with your own family,” she added.
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