They're Lovin' It

More than anything else, I'm beginning to believe that this blog just exists to expose all my ridiculous stereotypes about Swedish people. You know, They like cheesy music. They love blonde wood. They are all beautiful in a vaguely elfin way. And I always thought the Swedes were superior to Americans when it came to the food they ate. I believed they cooked more, ate more healthy foods like fish and vegetables and berries and spelt, and paid attention to the environmental impact of what they ate.

So it was to my great surprise that I discovered how insanely popular McDonald's is here. At least, the McDonald's near the public library a few blocks from my apartment. Now, I should provide some context. We lived even closer to a McDonald's back when we lived in Washington, DC, in Dupont Circle. We would occasionally grab lunch or dinner to go from there if we were in the mood for burgers, but more often than not we would hit up Five Guys. (McDonald's was, for me at least, much more about the fries than the burger.) We never, ever, ever ate in the restaurant. It would have been too depressing. Perhaps it was the incongruous location of this particular branch smack dab in the middle of a yuppie/hipster neighborhood, but very few people ate there. Yes, you would see construction workers, police officers, apartment supers in uniform, nannies pushing strollers, etc, coming out with their lunch to go. You would see angry women with picket signs marching around outside the entrance. But inside, actually sitting at the tables, were usually either senior citizens who didn't seem to have anywhere else to be, and who weren't going to be ejected by the staff, and people who may or may not have been homeless. I never asked, but I have a feeling that none of the parents I hung out with would ever be caught dead in that McDonald's. For me, it's still tasty and it's still something I enjoy eating once in a while and yes, you can think I'm disgusting, but you should see the other crap I eat. I get the impression that most American yuppie types, especially ones with toddlers, shun McDonald's and keep their children away from it. Only organic veggie burgers and oven-baked sweet potato wedges for precious Harper!

But back to Sweden. I assumed that if this was how McDonald's was viewed in Washington, then it would be the same if not more so in Stockholm. But no! I started seeing lots of kids walking around one weekend with similar-looking balloons and I was wondering if someone was handing them out for free on some corner. But then I was able to get a closer look at one, and realized it was a McDonald's balloon! These kids had all eaten at McDonald's! Another day, I looked in the big plate glass windows of the McDonald's by the library, and not only were there tons of kids in there, but there were also people who looked like white-collar cubicle workers all sitting at the counter facing the window, eating their Big Macs while wearing business-casual clothing. It's a completely different feel here. There is no obvious stigma to eating at McDonald's. Office workers seem to eat there the way they'd eat at a Chipotle or Subway or Panera in the States. And families flock there like it's Applebee's, only way cheaper.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. I suppose it shows that I know nothing about the Swedes' relationship to food, or anything else. If it were just about letting their children choose where to eat, I would get it. Kids here have more of a say than they do in the States. But all those single adults choosing it over, say, the falafel place directly next-door indicates that there's something else going on. Could it be that I was right all this time and McDonald's is indeed delicious?