Paltzerian

Palt is a traditional Swedish dish of meat-filled potato dumplings. It’s often topped with butter and lingonberry jam, and washed down with a glass of cold milk. In the northern part of Sweden, it’s an obsession and there are as many ways to cook it as there are people with an opinion on how to do it.

In the quiet village of Öjebyn on the Gulf of Bothnia, an unassuming storefront sharing a parking lot with a gas station houses the only diner in the world that serves exclusively paltz. Among others, Paltzerian’s 18 varieties include blodpalt (blood of pigs and deer turn the flour a deep blackish-red), carrot palt, reindeer palt, and even pitepalt, a variety local to the nearby city of Piteå.

Locals and foreigners alike come to this establishment to experience simple, handmade palt for lunch and dinner alongside strong beer and snaps. But there’s more than the dish itself to experience, such as paltschwiimen, the state of well-being and bodily fatigue that comes after eating a lot of palt.