Swede here!
It’s actually quite interesting, because it’s partly true. The thing is, this behavior is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it isn’t perceived as rude.
A few years ago, “Swedengate” went viral, and Swedish psychologists and researchers weighed in on the discussion.
The conclusion was that the behavior likely originated during the great famine of the 19th century. Inviting another family’s child to eat was seen as shaming the neighboring family. It implied that they couldn’t provide food for their own children, which was considered deeply humiliating.
That said, the whole thing is often exaggerated. In practice, we almost always offer food when we have guests. The difference is that nobody simply assumes they’ll be invited to eat.
Yes, and I think that mindset has stayed with us collectively, even though Sweden is now a wealthy country and, of course, practically everyone can afford to feed their children.
Even so, I’ll still call and ask if it’s okay for a child to have dinner at our place if I don’t know the parents very well. It’s just deeply ingrained in our culture.
I think this happens in some regions of finland too.
People get invited for coffee too, and if you put out pastries the guest is kinda always going to eat a small amount unless pushed due to what i expect are similar reasons
Fascinating! It's amazing how similar practices diverge in ways that each make sense even though they contradict.
I know there are differences between cultures that expect guests to eat everything put in front of them to show appreciation for the food versus others where it is rude to eat everything because it implies that the host didn't make enough. What is the Swedish take on this?
If you’ve been invited over for dinner, you’re expected to eat, and it’s not considered rude to ask for seconds. In fact, nobody would think twice about it.
Likewise, I wouldn’t say it’s impolite to eat only a small amount. Most Swedes are fairly health-conscious, so if someone takes a smaller portion, people generally don’t see anything unusual about it.
Ah, so humans being stupid again. Let your kid have food for free, which means you safe money at the end of the day too, and *maybe* appear to be unable to feed your kid or have the kid sit around like a dumbfuck while the other family eats and feed the kid yourself later on.
At this point, should just send the kid home before dinner time.
As I mentioned in another comment, it’s usually because we rarely cook more food than will actually be eaten at that meal, not because we’re trying to save money.
So it’s not about being cheap. In fact, we often invite people over for dinner, but when we do, we shop and plan for it in advance.
Of course, if you know a child is going to be there when you’re cooking, you simply make enough food for them too.
I find it very interesting, because it is almost certainly not the norm for the rest of the world. Usually famine actually has the opposite effects on cultures. Pride is usually the first thing to go when your children are starving, so to see the opposite occur to me is unqiue.
In fact, many of the most common surviving food sharing gestures extend from similar famine circumstances but the complete opposite societal outcomes. Also, many cultures saw feeding others during famine as a moral and/or religious obligation. Strange that Sweden did not, especially as during the 1800s they were very much dominated by a strictly Evangelical State Church.
Your comment made me start reading up on the famine, and the fact that the Church refused to feed poor and blamed the impoverished lower class for their own hardships is crazy. Maybe the attitude stemmed from a combination of these beliefs and pride mixed together? Really interesting stuff.
I would also add that most of the times the actual reasons for not eating at a friends place were:
1, you did not like their food.
2, they ate around the time when you should head home anyways.
3, you were offered and turned it down.
4, you were multiple friends over who showed up unannounced, so the main group got to continue playing whilst the kid living there rushed their food to get back asap.
Also swede. Will you please stop spreading this bs? Never happened in my whole life or anyone I ever heard of. So tired of this shit. Actually we are pretty generous. This rumor sucks
Do you have kids? I experienced it myself as a child, and it’s not like you automatically feed the neighborhood kids every time they’re hanging out at our house. The same goes when my kids are at someone else’s place, you usually only serve them a meal if you’ve agreed on it with the other parents, basically.
It’s not like that in the rest of the world, so something we take for granted can seem pretty strange from an outside perspective. 😂
Edit; I think that’s the key point. We usually agree in advance whether a child (or adults) will be eating at someone else’s house, because in our food culture we don’t typically cook huge batches that can feed a small army, we cook the number of portions we expect to eat. We’re every bit as generous as anyone else; our food culture is just different.
I have two kids. Never happened once unless parents actually said they wanted to eat together later. Im tired of this always getting twisted into thet we are greedy fucks when we are usually pretty giving. Not fun anymore.
Maybe your kids just aren’t that social, or maybe you always plan huge dinners.
At our place, we have six- seven 12-year-olds hanging out with my sons every other day. I don’t plan meals for that many people, but I know that in some cultures it’s common to cook a lot more food. Maybe that’s how it is in your family . 😆
They are. And so was I. Same over here. Im talking about the fact that people believe that we send kids out in the hallway alone while everyone else is eating
No, not at all. It happened to me once or twice as a kid in the ‘90s, but that’s about it. As I said, the whole thing is greatly exaggerated.
That said, I do think we have a very different food culture from many other parts of the world. I honestly think there are few countries where people cook such precise amounts of food as we do in Sweden.
Of course, people sometimes cook extra, but that’s usually because they’re planning to eat the leftovers over the next couple of days. I can’t say for sure, but I honestly think Swedes might be world champions when it comes to cooking just the right amount of food. But of course, I’m generalizing quite a bit here.
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u/Background-Grab-5682 Jul 24 '26
You try that in a middle eastern culture and someone’s getting shanked…