If you type the word ’fika’ into a translating program, the first entry that pops up is ’coffee,’ but that doesn’t really do it justice. Fika is more than coffee, it is lifestyle.
The subsequent entry for fika is ’hanker’ the verb, which is defined as ‘to have a restless or incessant longing (often fol. by after, for, or an infinitive)’ on dictionary.com. ‘Hanker’ is often used in film or tv shows, semi-comically, when someone professes a ‘hankering for a spankering,’ or, ‘a hankering for some ice cream.’
I suppose my understanding of fika lies somewhere in between those two definitions. More than just coffee, fika is an incessant longing to re-energize oneself in the company of good food, good friends, and of course, good coffee. Swedes attempt to fulfil this longing daily.
Having been in Sweden for a little over five months, I am still discovering new complexities and rules about fika. For instance, I mistakenly held the belief that fika was enjoyed once a day. Boy, was I wrong. Typically, and now I am no expert, there is first and foremost morning fika, which occurs around 10 or 11 o’clock, depending on your work and wake-up schedule.
Follow this up with the 3 o’clock fika, where that jolt of sugar and caffeine will propel you to undertake the rest of your day with a little extra ‘pizzazz,’ perhaps.
And how could I forget after-dinner fika? Now, I had good reason for not knowing about this fika until recently. My night-time rituals leave much to be desired. Dinner for one, followed by The Daily Show and Colbert Report, a little bit of reading, and bed. No coffee. No company. No after-dinner fika.
It would be preposterous to think of people who fit in more than three fikas per day, but I image it’s been done.
I can’t seem to remember when I first was introduced to the term fika. In English, it does have a bit of a strange ring to it, but then again, so do many words. I image a colleague said something about fika, to which us non-Swedes must have replied something along the lines of, ‘fika what?’
Initially, one draws comparisons to our North American watered down version: the coffee break. Fika is not a coffee break.
A coffee break, as I know it, consists of sitting down with a cup of coffee, perhaps with a coworker, for oh, five or ten minutes. I myself have never actually been on one of these coffee breaks, although I am sure they exist. Again, as far as I know, a coffee break does not center around a delicious spread of pastries and sweets, but of course those do exist in Canada. I suppose fika is comparable to meeting up with friends for coffee. They seem deceptively similar, although they are not the same thing.
Fika is something of a cultural right. Grown men and women alike have fika. Teenagers have fika. Girls and boys have fika. There are cafés everywhere devoted to fika. During certain rooms, no seats are available due to the large number of people enjoying fika. People take fika at work, at home, in town. I wonder if there is a place where fika is not ‘taken.’
The use of the verb ‘to take’ may seem odd at first. Perhaps it’s an inaccurate translation from Swedish to English. The more appropriate verb is certainly ‘to have,’ or even ‘to get.’ ‘Would you like to have fika with me?’ one could ask, although it would kind of be a rhetorical question. Are you Swedish? Then you take fika. ‘Let’s go take a fika,’ I often hear. Or, ‘we’re going to take fika now.’
So as I’ve spent the above paragraphs dancing around what fika actually is, I will now attempt to flesh it out a little. The first part of fika is the beverage. One is not limited to coffee, as there is an array of other delicious temptations. Hot chocolate served in a 20oz mug, topped with cream and chocolate, cappuncinos, lates, cola drinks, water, . . . all are present in a typical fika place.
And. . . the treats. Man, are there treats. The amount of goodies in any given fika place puts the standard 10 items at Starbucks to shave. There is ‘semla’ a bread-type pastries with with almond pasta and cream, ‘princess cake’ which is a kind of marzipan encrusted pastry, frog pastries, cookies, cinnamon buns, sandwiches with shrimp, salads with shrimp, cheese, sandwiches with egg, and I’m sure I’m missing many others. Do people really eat these sweets? I can answer with a resounding YES! As a self-professed sweet tooth, I can safely say that here, my craving for sweets is modest at best. Although I cannot generalize, Swedes seem to have unbelievable cravings for baked goods, regardless of who they are.
Simply put, fika is great. How can you not love a tradition that allows people to stop what they are doing, sit down, and catch-up with family and friends. Workaholics may not hold this same opinion, but fika is sweet, no pun intended. It’s like stopping for coffee at grandma’s house, you make time for it, not because you must, but because it’s a part of who you are, of who we are as humans. It’s a pause in the time to appreciate each other, and show that by spending time together. Don’t get me wrong, I am not in the daily fika club. I cannot indulge in pastries that often, knowing that although they are filled with goodness, they are also filled with far too many calories. (As a side note, surprisingly, people are NOT generally fat or large in Sweden. It will take me another five months here to figure that one out).
So, there you go: an amateur attempt to de-mystify and explain a little bit about fika. Pictures will be included to do what my words cannot!
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