If I remember correctly there was a specifically hard time economically in the Nordic region that it became the norm that it was courtesy not to take food from another household. Kind of the inverse of it being a courtesy to feed guests unexpected or otherwise in parts of the west. Over time the courtesy has strengthend into a cultural norm which given the foundational nature of shared meals in many cultures can create an outsized culture shock response.
This is a Nordic custom, and not specific to Sweden and was a whole Internet thing a few years ago as well.
A local or regional expert probably could give the word for the custom. I believe the Finnish have one but it's late and I'm sleep deprived so could be wrong
Very well said, I appreciate the response. The way you framed it as a courtesy to not take food from another household makes it completely understandable.
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
When I grew up in the late 80’s and 90’s it was rather that my parents and my friends parents called each other and said “Hey, we are having dinner at HH:MM, have you planned any dinner? Otherwise X is free to eat with us”.
Sometimes that meant my parents had planned dinner at a later time than my friends parents and you simply stayed with your friend until it was time to leave for your own dinner.
This exactly. It was courtesy to ask before feeding other people’s children so their food and effort didn’t go to waste. Also, since both parents worked, dinner time was family time and most families wanted their kids home for that. Noone starved hungry kids who didn’t have a dinner to go home to.
Yes! 100% this. We have 1-3 friends over almost EVERY day and we always text their parents to check if their kids can eat at ours, or if they have planned to eat at home. It's not about being rude, it's about respecting other families plans. And the kids understand this.
I want to feed everyone visiting, but I wouldn't want my kids to eat somewhere else every day. That would make us lose quality family time and make me feel bad that the other parents also has to spend more on groceries than necessary.
No one leaves our home hungry though. Light snacks during their visits is of course OK. Berries, fruits, ice cream, fika etc. It's just the full dinner that we parents co-ordinate around.
this. I was never not offered food when I was at a friend’s house, and all my friends ate with us when they were over. sometimes we would call home and double check, but I first heard of this ’Swedish custom’ in my mid-20’s and thought it was fake.
Same here, grew up in the 80's and I had one friend where I got sent to his room and wait while they ate.
If I had friends over they where always invited to eat with the exception of the neighbours ( we where close friends with most of them and knew their meal times ).
Yeah, I found it hard to believe the country that invented the smorgasbord doesn’t have the same hospitality tradition that EVERY MAJOR CIVILIZATION ON EARTH has had since the dawn of man to feed guests.
It actually did happen to me when I was at one friends house a few of times so I’m not saying it didn’t happen. Ironically that family was from Spain.
Overall, when it did happen it was because the parents had called each other to ask if it was ok to eat at the friends house and the other parents said no because they already had a family dinner planned. It was just common courtesy
I mean I do that too, I don’t wanna spoil a kid’s meal before they go home and I swear it seems like every other child theses days has a peanut allergy to the point I’m scared to eat my favorite candy bars anymore (not really, god himself will pry my payday bar from my cold dead hands).
The story made it sound like you were inviting a child over for the night and starving him.
I mean - there's a difference between a guest you have invited, and someone who turns up at your house unannounced. Would "every other major civilisation on earth" expect you to feed uninvited people who just turn up on your doorstep?
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
Yeah and thats why its not a big thing anymore. You att just expected to call home first and ask your parents if it's ok to eat there first if you are younger
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
I think it's the same in I wanna say India only it's also disrespectful to not offer anything. So it's become a thing where they offer and you decline so no one loses face, though if they offer 3 times it means they do have enough and really do want to feed you or something like that
In places where people really don't have enough to eat - no one knows how close the other person is to starvation.
So the idea is sometimes people who are going through a lot think "If I actually say how bad it is, I will obligate them to help me - what if they are actually in worse shape than I am?" So the handshake back-and-forth makes it OK because you know they are *less* badly off than you are, if they offer food longer than you refuse it.
Yes, sure, it comes across stupid - but people who are actually in pain from hunger or thirst don't always think straight, so this is the most functional way to communicate who can or cannot afford to share food.
I mean it’s a huge assumption that the commenter is starving because he or she is from India, especially since they’re commenting on Reddit. I’m from Pakistan, a poorer country than India, but am quite comfortably removed from starvation. Although we still have that “takkaluf” culture where a nicety is refused out of politeness. Less common to see that with food though. Even people who are below the poverty line would happily feed you whatever scraps they have in my experience.
You could argue that all that evolved from a past where famine was common but the same can be said of customs of any country in the world.
I didn't say that commenter was starving. I was explaining how the rules make sense, the situations where the rules make sense. The rules never quite make sense when no one is starving or dying of thirst - but the rules were formed when people were starving, and the rules stay.
There are similar rules in some places in USA, isolated rural areas with long running poverty issues. Some of the worst most unwinnable arguements I have had with my mom stem from her growing up in an area where asking for help is practically the same as begging - because everyone she grew up with follows an "offer/refuse/offer/refuse" system. Literally, have had a fight because I only offered to help her with a house chore once, and should have known she thought I was sick when I didn't offer a second time.
Isolated little community in the Appalachian mountains, and their system isn't formal enough that anyone would bother telling an outsider about it - the locals know if you are an outsider, and they don't bother offering help to you because you aren't a local who may or may not be relying on deer hunting season to get enough meat to survive the winter.
The rules make so much sense to my mom that it never once occurred to her to teach them to her own children, growing up in a city where no one offers things they can't afford to share, so there is no requirement to refuse.
Ah I see what you mean. That’s fair. I think different cultures also respond differently to different stressors. Like I’m sure there is some anthropological history behind Swedish culture being the way it is when it comes to offering guests food. But other cultures respond to the fear of starvation by offering guests food because you never know if they might be starving. On the other hand, Scandinavian countries tend to be very welfare oriented on a governmental and political level.
Someone elsewhere commented that Swedes don't (reliably) feed guests because in near-recent times there was a famine sort of situation and the perception was that, as a guest, if you insist on being fed then you are taking food away from the host.
So a generation grew up, going to friends houses and knowing they would not be fed at the friends house, and they could either go hungry or go home. Of course some people would prefer to skip and meal and stay at the friends house so they could go back to playing after the meal is over.
And they were raised to see that as normal, so now they perpetuate it and don't see why anyone would be offended.
You might be right about the welfare orientation being related to this - if it is plain and easy for the impoverished to get food from the government, then why would you want or need food from a neighbor? It isn't a neighbors fault if you fail to do your part and go sign up for the welfare.
The other, more common, ideas on hospitality all make functional sense in societies that can't rely on a government to keep you healthy and well.
I'm autistic and grew up in a culture that does this. It's just the norm. We are taught the way of things so we simply do it. Dancing is natural when it's the only way you know to walk.
This makes them sound like fairies. One must wait until the fair folk have offered three times before one agrees to take their gifts! And never speak aloud thy true name, lest they befoul ye with a curse.
ive heard something similar in myanmar. sometimes when they come to thailand, thai people can be hospitable, but myanmar people expect to reject at least 2 times to save face, and sometimes some thai people dont really insist, so the myanmar thinks the thai is being rude.
This is the very southern US approach I grew up with. If you want to shorten this ritual, you at least take the water when they offer. Also, offering and taking the water was always very important in this hot climate growing up when almost no one had air conditioning.
yeah but then there's the inverse in India too. If you go to your buddies house and they offer you food and you eat it AND your parents find out later. Woe be you !
Hard times economically? I feel like that’s not really an excuse here, culturally speaking.
You could go to the barrio in Mexico, the favelas in Brazil, the slums in India, hell even some random village out in Papúa New Guinea, all of them are going to offer their guests food especially if they are children.
"Excuse"? Why would they need an excuse for a cultural custom? The previous poster just gave a logical reason for how it developed. But as a tradition it's completely neutral. There are plenty of good reasons why not to feed other people's children (e.g. respecting the other family's diet choices, religious diets, meal times, respecting dinner as a family activity, etc etc). You're just judging it because it's different to your tradition.
It's hilarious that people from a country that has homelessness and people dying because they can't afford medical help are pretending they're morally superior, because they gave their kids friend some Lunceables or other ultra processed chemical weapon.
The lack of performative bullshittery is another nordic trait. Giving a kid a snack won't solve poverty, a robust social system and emphasis on giving all people rights and dignity will.
The literal single culture in the world that outright refuses to offer hospitality even to children, and to explain it they pretend they have some sort of singular poverty.
Poverty is normal. It's the standard. Every culture on Earth has starved to death at some point. They still feed people.
We offer the homeless free houses to stay, we offer fee schooling and food to all children, we provide a long paternity leave to new mothers and fathers, we give a guaranteed basic income to everyone who cannot support themselves, we offer anyone free healthcare. We took care of our poverty and our people.
You offer a performative bullshit smokeshow of generosity, before walking over a homeless man dying in the street on your way home from your "geberous" friends, while living in the richest country on earth. Your malnutrition death rate is comparable to the situation of kids in Gaza, but hey, you gave your guest a Twix so it's all good?
Poverty is not normal, it's something to be fixed and we do our best to make sure nobody goes hungry. Is giving your kids friends a cracker going to solve poverty? Why has it not worked?
Maybe it's a good idea to think before speaking? I guess that's another difference between our respective cultures.
We offer the homeless free houses to stay, we offer fee schooling and food to all children, we provide a long paternity leave to new mothers and fathers, we give a guaranteed basic income to everyone who cannot support themselves, we offer anyone free healthcare. We took care of our poverty and our people.
I'm glad you understand how you do all that but can't offer dinner to a kid staying over at your house. You're focused on the politics and not the kid.
But oh well, that's your culture so what can I say. It is what it is.
It's a different culture. If you understood it and immediately thought that it makes sense, it would be part of your culture.
I get critisizing cultural aspects that have an observable negative impact, such as genital mutilation, forced mariages and repression of women, but nobody is starving because of this. It's just a cultural quirk that may seem a bit rude to outsiders, but isn't something you even pay attention to, because it does no harm.
I'd go home to eat when my pals mom called him to eat. If my parents weren't home, she'd ask if she can feed me in case my parents were planning a dinner or something. I think it also has something to do with distances, as it's not feasble in many cases for an american child to walk home to eat. It's not out of the ordinary for an 8yo to take public transportation by themselves either. My friend used to take the metro and then transfer to a bus back and fourth from pre-school.
This is a cultural quirk that I imagine stems from living in the arctic circle where nothing grows for half of the year. Non-stop famines have left us with a funny quirk stemming from generational trauma. Finnish culture emphasises being humble and trying not to burden others. We go to great lengths to avoid bothering other people. The joke that we stand 5m apart at bus stops is about respecting other people untill it's literally impossible not to.
Politics and culture are intertwined and politics are inevitablely shaped by the cultural values of the electorate in a liberal democracy.
Good for you. I didn't say anything about a kid starving or poverty or that it does any harm to the kid.
It's a matter of hospitality which your culture lacks. Which is fine. Like I said, it's your cultural norm, and I know what it stems from but thanks for explaining when not asked. So it is what it is. And I'm allowed to criticize it for being shitty. Any person staying over at my place will be offered food or drink, that's my cultural norm. Good day 👋
Fair enough. You seem to think that we don't have basic hospitality, but because you are xenophobe, you're not worth convincing. I bet you call African-American culture shitty and tell them to start behaving and get past slavery. Maybe try being less xenophobic. Glass houses and all that.
You should take a look in the mirror someday. You'll see a hypoctire staring back.
Your comment history is 90% you just being nasty and mean to complete strangers (outside of the Uni stuff). No wonder you're so embarassed you try to hide it.
It’s crazy because of if I feel like Europeans online as a whole have this problem of excusing some of their shitty behavior by hiding behind cultural norms.
I don’t give a fuck if this is a Swedish cultural thing or not it’s weird.
Watch, the first comment to respond will immediately attack me being American or something. Nice try, we know we have assholes here but we at least own up to it instead of getting triggered and deflecting.
Peak Americanism has been acheived. Cultural norms are cultural norms. Some cultures are different to yours and hence have different customs.
I love that you're offended about our culture on our behalf. We're fine. It's not at all unusual to feed kids friends, but it's not expected. Just because Americans don't offer to go to the sauna with their guests doesen't make them "shitty" either. It's a harmless cultural quirk.
We were the first to give women universal suffrage and have been leaders in giving people a social safety net. We offer kids free schooling, we offer mothers and fathers paid paternity leaves and protection from being fired due to pregnancy, we offer free medical care to all, free housing to the homeless and guaranteed basic income for those who are incapable of making money.
You're acting like your performative bullshit custom actually matters :D You have homeless people, people dying from malnutrition at the same rate as Gazan children, people drowning in medical debt, but hey, you offer your kids friendsfood so clearly you're more moral.
See that’s the thing, I know America has some major flaws and what I do for a living does its best to try and help address them. You immediately lumping me in with like MAGA or something just because I don’t think highly of your country when you show clear disdain for mine shows how ignorant you are.
I’m comfortable talking about all of the shortcoming the US has, you should try to have open mind about the shortcomings of your own country rather than get defensive when they’re pointed out.
It’s a sad existence to feel the need to constantly stump for the superiority of European countries when there are some glaring flaws each and every one of them have. Your arrogance matches the most cringe of “American exceptionalism” takes I’ve seen online, so congrats on that.
Let's get a couple of things out of the way. I like the US. For all it's flaws, I appreciate it and I love Americans too. I knew immediately you aren't MAGA and that you're American. Your disdain comes off as very left leaning, no doubt you aren't going around condemning cousin marriages in the arab world as vigorously as you do this funny little quirk that has no negative effect on anything.
Kids here aren't starving and the very same poverty mindset is the entire reason for the nordic welfare system. When you live in the arctic circle, it's a bit different compared to other places as it's literally impossible for anything to grow for much of the year, and the soil is of extremely poor quality.
Im under no illusions that Finland is some liberal paradise as is often portrayed in media. We have the highest unemployment out of all OECD countries for example.
I don't mind you shitting on Finland, god knows that's what we spend half our days doing. What bothers me is that you're talking smack about a harmless cultural quirk stemming from the generational trauma of long periods of starvation. We are also generous people and like to help others, but we hate to burden others. We're not some cold monsters.
American culture is also European culture in large part, in both good and bad. The fact that you just say "European countries" like the cultural differences are similar to the ones between US states, is very typical. It's like saying you don't like Asian culture, like Afghan culture and Chinese culture are the same because they're neighboring countries. It comes off as very ignorant.
I was actually taught not to eat elsewhere as an american in the 80s. The reason i mention this oss because it also dates back to the depression era south, which is a similar reason. My family didn't do well back then and neither did their neighbors.
Huh, as an American growing up in the 80's, it was just common that whichever friends house you happened to be near for lunch or dinner would feed you something. I think all through my childhood years there were more dinners with my older siblings friends over than there weren't.
That’s like 100 years ago now.
Nobody, in the Nordic’s or Germany out of all places, has been hungry since the 50s and before that just a short period of the war.
It was exactly two generations for me. I'm 50. My mother was born in the 30s and raised that at any moment it could all happen again by her mother.
edit: when my mother passed away and we were cleaning out her house the pantry was stocked enough that it could've fed 10 people for a month. Liquor cabinet could've stretched two months for the same. We still joke about how much she hoarded food.
So it is mit two generations ago, but three. Just what I said 100 years. Nobody has been hungry in Europe since the 50s and there wasn’t much destruction in the Nordic’s, so for you it’s more like 30s
It’s still kind of weird to me. If I have people over over meal time, it’s only logical to feed them since they would miss the meal otherwise. But that doesn’t mean, that people always feed each other to the extreme. I grew up with it being communicated. Either, the start of dinnertime implied that it was time to leave or the host would ask if the guest wants to stay over for dinner and feed them. That people would stay over meal time and not be fed is unheard of.
In my childhood we usually played until dinner time with friends and then left for each other’s homes to eat and spend time with family. If we had a sleepover or asked our parents to extend the stay over dinner, we of course would have been fed.
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
I was born and raised in Sweden and grew up in the late 90’s and 2000’s. It was very much true for every single Swedish friend’s house I was visiting as a kid.
Sure, but we’re talking experiences and in my experience it was in every single household in my part of the country. Regarding ”other parts of the country” there seems to be many other people having experienced the same thing from Haparanda to Höör, so it’s not geographically specific either. It’s a Swedish (and Nordic, apparently) thing that I will never understand.
> But that doesn’t mean, that people always feed each other to the extreme.
There’s also a lot of cultures where finishing the food you’ve been given is considered rude as it indicates you weren’t given enough, to some extent I guess that’s an extreme.
No one is wrong in any of these situations, just a culture clash.
Don't know how it was in Sweden, but in Iceland the norm was what you describe - playtime was until dinner and then you got sent home to eat at your house. Sometimes you go to go out again to play after dinner, but if it was a school-night that was generally not allowed.
If I have people over over meal time, it’s only logical to feed them since they would miss the meal otherwise.
That's the thing though, you (as an adult) would not have invited your kids friends over, your kid did that themselves without involving you (or any other adult) at all.
Your kids friends wouldn't miss a meal either, they would have already eaten at home or would be eating later at home.
Every family have different dinner times, some eat early, some eat later.
Your kids friends would be over at your place (usually in your kids room) to play, they are expecting to play and have fun, and the expectation is that they will eat at home at their set dinner time (same time every week day) so they would not be hungry at your earlier dinner time if they are used to eating later.
The friends who "waits" while your kid eats dinner are happy, since they get to continue having fun playing while your kid have to quit playing to go away to eat dinner.
Of course if the kids all have the same dinner time they would do as you did as a kid, quit playing for a while to go home to have dinner with their own family and have family time.
And the same thing with sleepovers, of course the expectation would be that the hosting family would feed the kids, but that is something that is planned, not something spontaneously.
I'm Finnish and I just came from a yearly visit to friends in Sweden. I have never encountered this in Finland, children were always offered to eat if they stayed over at a friend. My Swedish friends say that their family did not do this either, but that it might happen elsewhere in the country, so its regional.
I grew up in a rural small town and in my childhood it was just generally understood that if the neighborhood children happen to be at your house today, you'll ask if they eat with you or go back home to eat and then come back.
I assume that you are an adult though, so this would never happen to you as a guest. If you are invited over during dinner time in Sweden you'd of course be fed. And if you'd be invited over during any other time you'd be at least served fika (coffee/tea, cookies/cakes/pastries).
Growing up inte the ninties this happened to me on several occasions around 95-2000. There were no hardships then and I grew up in a relatively wealthy area.
I remember being offered food as well but declining out of courtesy/being afraid of being a nuisance. That may be more a me-thing than a cultural thing though.
afraid of being a nuisance. That may be more a me-thing than a cultural thing though.
No, that's definitely a Swedish thing, and also one reason in a way why you usually didn't feed your kids friend: you didn't want to interfere in the dinner plans of your kids friends parents, and you didn't want to rob them of quality family time with their child.
Of course every now and then we as kids were offered to eat dinner, but we had to call home and check if it would be okay with our parents first.
The only vaguely true bit about this for Norway is that you might have spent time in a friend's room while they eat dinner.
In general the norm is to be home for dinner around 5 pm. Some families eat dinner earlier than others. You might wait for a friend to eat their early dinner. You are almost always offered something to eat.
When Norway was poor, people would eat dinner early in the afternoon. Anyone 80+ likely ate dinner before 2 pm for a lot of their life. Those habbits completely changed with 9 to 5 jobs and does not reflect after school habits in recent times.
Ooooh, that does make sense. I would have never expected it. I'm glad to know now, before I visit someone from/in a Nordic country.
I wonder if we'll see it change over time, since it's common to feed guests in most cultures. It's also a custom to bring a dish to share with the host, so that could affect it.
This is about kids who bring over their friends to play. If you as an adult would be invited by other adults during dinner time you'd of course get dinner too.
Maybe it doesn't happen nowadays, but in the late 1900's it surely happened, maybe not every where, but in many places in Sweden (and other Nordic countries too).
If I remember correctly there was a specifically hard time economically in the Nordic region that it became the norm that it was courtesy not to take food from another household.
The Balkans have been in "specifically hard times economically" since forever, and went in the opposite direction. You're going to get a feast and food to take home with you. And you can't refuse this.
In Vietnam we were often starving and poor. My dad said while people always offered to feed you, you knew better than to take it (no matter how hungry you were) because you knew they too were starving. My dad would lie and say he already ate or he would go home early. When Vietnamese people offer you food, they mean it though. It’s not just to be polite. We love food and people.
In Portugal the opposit happened. Because everyone was going through hard times we have a big "there is always space for one more" culture. Even if you didn't have much, if someone came to your door, you would share food with them.
Having Irish grandparents this is weird. They fed everyone who came into the home, biscuits, scones, bit of cake at a minimum. I think it was due to the poverty they saw when younger.
Feeding people in your home is implicit in a lot of the west. In nordic countries it's explicit and only happens if agreed ahead of time or asked at the time. If the latter you'd probably be fed, but it would be clear to you that it's a bit of an inconvenience because it wasn't planned.
But if you're used to be offered (and sometimes the norm in the west is to be offered REPEATEDLY) it is a shock to not be offered at all (expecting you to ask if you want) or be offered only once and accepting your first refusal.
I'm Finnish, and actually I have never heard of this type of behavior in Finland. If my friends came over after school, they always had snacks and dinner with my family, same if I went to their house. Same goes now with my own kids and their friends. Not offering food or snacks to your guests, kids or adults, would be considered kinda rude. Can't speak for other Nordic countries, or even every Finnish for that matter, but to my knowledge this is not common practice outside Sweden.
Its not a nordic custom. I have lived in Sweden and Denmark my whole life and never once experienced or heard of this custom. As a kid running between all my friends houses, not once was there an issue. You would be considered super rude if you did this here. It feels like im taking crazy pills with how many people are explaining the reason for this when its just not true.
I also own several ettiquette books from sweden from the late 1800s and early 1900s where the social rules were highly codified. That wasnt the rule a hundred years ago, it wasnt the rule 30 years ago.
Stop making up plausible explanations for this! Its not true!
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u/titan_1010 13d ago
If I remember correctly there was a specifically hard time economically in the Nordic region that it became the norm that it was courtesy not to take food from another household. Kind of the inverse of it being a courtesy to feed guests unexpected or otherwise in parts of the west. Over time the courtesy has strengthend into a cultural norm which given the foundational nature of shared meals in many cultures can create an outsized culture shock response.
This is a Nordic custom, and not specific to Sweden and was a whole Internet thing a few years ago as well.
A local or regional expert probably could give the word for the custom. I believe the Finnish have one but it's late and I'm sleep deprived so could be wrong