Translated from Swedish Article:
The Food Act is like a gray blanket over everything that is good and beautiful.
When I was a student in the German Freiburg jumped, we often enter a couple of cars and headed out of the country. Around the beautiful Baden is Germany’s best restaurants, but we went there only if we were invited, otherwise there was a Strausse. We sat wedged in the rustic wooden furniture in the halls decorated sideboard, enjoying regional specialties and cold local wines at very low prices. Usually we were pampered by a hostess dressed in national costume, talkative and with a dialect not even my German friends could totally decipher.
Straussen - or Besenwirtschaft, which is the official word - are small eateries that do not need to meet the usual rules. A vinodlarfamilj can set up a few tables, prepare some local specialties (such as cold cuts, pork stew, or Flammkuchen) and hang out a broom (Strausse) outside the door. This requires either condition, technical equipment or overzealous food inspectors. This right goes back to Charlemagne’s time; the business must be limited to a total of four months a year and you get to have a maximum of 40 seats - although it is usually considerably less. The system is available under various names throughout the wine-growing area of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Something that always strikes me as a gastronome is to Matsverige has a fundamental problem, which despite a strong foodietrend, international chef medals, government initiatives and a growing small-scale food production means that we still lag far behind the continent. It is the Swedish legislation - designed for giant matindustrier, caterers and giant restaurants - with its all-powerful design is as an inch thick hormoslyrindränkt blanket over all small culinary businesses.
From north to south stifles this death felt everything good and beautiful: Congregations which only serves church coffee on Sundays must still invest in Svindyr grease traps. Hot dog stands are not allowed to cook mashed potatoes, but only the powder. Preschools forbidden to have children in the kitchen though it is part of education. Some preschools may not even cook their own meals, because they do not have a special rotfruktsrum! Scouts reported when selling homemade buns. At the chalets and mini dairies forced the owner to shower every time he goes from animals to ystandet and nuclear force - perhaps 25 times a day. Makers are not allowed to use the tools of wood. We must not spice their own brandy or air dry ham.
The laws are not adapted to the size of the business. Even if you just want to run a summer restaurant with a few tables in their living room, the same requirements for hyper fans, grease traps, cash and food education for giant containers. And do not blame the EU, so here it does not look in the rest of Europe! Though it may well be that with the autumn »mulled a ban« the NFA misunderstood EU rules …
What Sweden needs is a comprehensive reform of the cooking legislation. A new system where the law is adapted to the scale of operation. Why not start with the restaurants? Copy the German system of Straussen - though of course without the requirement of viticulture. I dream of traveling the Swedish countryside and see brooms hang from farmhouses and villas. Just stepping into someone’s yard, barn or recreation and contracts served porter steak on your shot moose, waffles or grandmother’s dumplings … Maybe even a glass of cold, home-brewed cider? Though as far as you can never get the gray blanket that is rolled back.
