Crunching the knäckebröd

The one thing we like about That Swedish Furniture Store Which Shall Remain Nameless is its little food aisle. While others are throwing elbows, trying to get to the meatballs and the Lingonberry jams, we’ve been smugly making off with a few pounds of nutty, mild Swedish cheese, and wheels and wheels of knäckebröd. Ever since Swedish blogger Anne of Anne’s Food blogged about visiting the Wasa factory in… Sweden somewhere, we’ve been wanting to visit one ourselves. Since we can’t get to Sweden this week, we’ll just blog about the joys of knäckebröd.

Growing up in a vegetarian household that was big on fiber, we both grew up eating crisp rye crackers, and both of us are Ryvita addicts, but the big traditionally produced platters and wheels of crispbread are something even better. Made of rye, and baked into thin sheets, this bread was meant to have a long life, and can be used and stored for a long time. A vehicle for both sweet and savory toppings, we enjoy ours piled with thinly sliced apples, a tart or nutty cheese, and smoked tofu. You can use a cream-cheese based spread studded with sundried tomatoes or olives to start you off, and add some kind of fish, luncheon meats or thinly sliced sausage. For a change, we sometimes top our knäckebröd with a dollop of yogurt and chopped cucumber and herbs, or a bit of jam and a soft fruit like peaches or nectarines.

They’re crisp and light and while most of the time they don’t crumple in your hands, they’re not really the ideal food to eat when you’re reading… one-handed… which is generally how we eat them anyway. They’re the perfect picnic food, or, if you’re having a rain-picnic indoors like we usually do, they work great in front of the fireplace, too.

We’ve not tried to make our own knäckebröd, but here’s a recipe from Johanna K’s blog, and a cool Flickr tutorial we found should you ever want to try it. At present, we’re happy getting it from That Food Store, and leave this light, crisp bread as the only item we ever buy there.

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