Collections Spotlight

Among the 17,000 books in ASI’s Wallenberg Library can be found a time capsule of Swedish food culture: handwritten recipe books preserving the food traditions of Swedish emigrants. Produced by local churches and organizations in the US, these unique volumes contain many recipes that fell out of use in Sweden but remained popular in Scandinavian America from 1846 to the present. This collection is so unique that Swedish food TV icon Richard Tellström traveled to ASI to do research for an upcoming book.

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Both Minnesota and the Nordic region are home to great aquavit distillers, but the popular movement to use aquavit in cocktails has yet to gain the same amount of traction in America.

ASI's Nordic Table instructor Patrice Johnson included this recipe for an Aquavit Sidecar in her book

Jul: Swedish American Holiday Traditions, which is available from the ASI Museum Store. The recipe is reprinted here with permission from Minnesota Historical Society Press.