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Home -> Local food
Local Food
Local food is something that interests most people, residents as well as visitors. But what really is our local food? In an age with such an infrastructure that enables almost the same supply of fish at an Ica Supermarket in Örebro, as in the fisheries in Gothenburg, the local hallmark of food is at risk of disappearing. Octopus and noodles is accessable in the shop next door and soon in our winter darkness at home we will have a Thai dish on our table.
What is interesting though is where the food is produced. At Vikbolandet there is a large production of bird, eggs, beef, milk, sheep, lamb, grains and oil plants. Complemented by wild animals, mushrooms and berries from the woods, honey from our bees, fish and eel from our lovely archipelago as well as mallard or common goldeneye in the waters which makes this our unmistakable local food - fresh from Vikbolandet.
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Animal Farming
Vikbolandet is a farming area by tradition with many established farms both small and large. Besides the grain farms in western Vikbolandet, most farms have a history of producing milk, beef or pork.
In leaner times where the profitablility has decreased in the original production lines the farmers that are left work large scale operations or find a niche that works for them.
Examples of adjusted methods that have been explored are organic production forms, free-range pork and egg production, pure breeding of beef animals, beekeeping, wild turkey breeding, deer breeding, small-scale butchers and even an ostrich farm!
The thing in common with these avenues is that they all raise the animals in one way or the other and are trying to add a distinctive profile to their products. The problem for most meat producers is that the butchering is both expensive and is not carried out on site, besides our future abbatoir for wild animals.
Futher refinement and consumer packing demands approved premises too, which in Vikbolandet works best when it comes to birds and wild animals where the rules and regulations are better.
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Boiling chantarelle mushrooms, is there anything better?
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Fish & Wild
An even simpler legal framework applies to fish and self-reared/enclosed wild animals and here at Vikbolandet the supply is large.
Concerning the fishing industry, the income from eel fishing during summer and pre-autumn has been the basis for the most important income. The exsistence of eel has however decreased lately as it has over the whole of Europe. For the fisherman who partly changed their fishing into other species such as pike perch and perch whilst also refining all of their fish themselves, there is still a future in the business.
An example of this is Björn & Bo Aronsson, at Birkö outside of Aspöja. From these gentleman, you can buy your fish directly on the landing in Arkösund and choose between all sorts of products fresh and smoked, pikes and perch, whitefish, eel, salmon, flounder, Baltic herring and a little bit of west coat import – shrimps and mackerel.
The wild fare from Vikbolandet is dominated by elk and roe deer although it is possible to get all sorts from common goldeneye, mallard to hare and dove and in later years a few wild boars. Venison is available from farmed animals.
The meat from wild animals rarely goes to the local shop or to Norrköping. Most of the meat that is sold, is marketed through "word of mouth" if you are interested in anything particular to talk to any of the active local hunters, this is it.
One or two roe deers and elks also end up in the Östermalmshallen in Stockholm, where the prices are higher than in the provinces.
The value of the meat from wild animals, that ends up in freezers of the hunters, is quite reasonable with elk and venison making out the basic food in many of the households with access to their own or rented hunting areas.
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evening barbecue. A quote from the actor Per Morberg: "One should not really be working. One should only hunt. And barbecue!"
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Berries & Mushrooms
At Vikbolandet there are many excellent berry and mushroom woods. The most common growing though, is mainly the blueberry and lingonberry in eastern Vikbolandet, while you may find mushrooms in most woods, big and small.
More often it is the berries, like rowans, blueberries and lingonberries a kind of unexploited nature resource and most of them that don’t become bird or wild animal food, are lost every autumn. Those who take the time to every year go out in the wood, the satisfaction is huge to be able to treat somebody with truly your "own" creamed mushrooms and conserves.
The mushroom appears, as in the whole of Sweden in hundreds of kinds and to be able to pick and enjoy the tastiest primeurs, takes both experience and training. To most people, the hunt for mushrooms is quite limited to chantarelles, yellow feet, trumpet mushroom, hedgehog mushroom and clavaria. These are all easy to recognize and are hard to mistake for something that can see you end your Saturday in the hospital.
All of these are delicious mushrooms and are easy to parboil or dry, for later use in the winter’s lovely meals to come. Perhaps an elk fillet with hazel potatoes and a chantarelle stew, rounded off with blueberry pie and custard as desert.
It is gratifying to know where the food comes from and perhaps you have picked it yourself or know the elk hunter? Anyway, it is on one of these evenings the food tastes the best!
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Vikboland’s food. Local food producers in cooperation.
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Local Grocery Stores and Restaurants
From there being a a number of grocery stores a couple of years ago at Vikbolandet, there are only two of them left. Restaurants and pubs have however bucked this trend and become more over the last years. Several of the eateries are only open seasonally though.
Grocery stores:
Ica Supermarket Östra Husby, Large supply, ATG (gambling), Systembolag (state owned alcohol retailer), full service. 0125-242 00.
Arkö Livs Arkösund. ATG, Systembolag. 0125-200 32.
Restaurants:
Gösta’s Mat & Pub Arkösund, good food in genuine pub environment, fully licensed. All year round, 0125-200 32.
Arkösund’s Hotell Arkösund, accommodation, fine restaurant, inside and outside bar, fully licensed. All year round, 0125-200 03.
Strandgrillen Arkösund, barbecue at bathing spot, beers. Open seasonally.
Café Ankaret Arkösund, barbecue and ice cream etc. Open seasonally.
Björnö Pub at Björnö Marina. Food/barbecue, beers & wine, open seasonally.
Östra Husby pizzeria, pizza/barbecue etc. Beers & Wine. All year round.
Stegeborg’s Hamnkrog in Söderkrog. Food, fully licensed. Open seasonally, 0121-420 02.
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Rickard & Malin Hellström
Jonsberg Ormsätter
610 26 Vikbolandet
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Phone: +46 (0) 125-311 54
Mobile: +46 (0) 70-799 80 00
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info@ormsatter.se
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