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After about 34 hours in Sweden, 1 sleepless night, 2 coffees and a 3 hour bus ride, I was in desperate need of sugar. Gothenburg isn’t known for much, but I was told St. Agnes Káfe was a necessary place to stop to try out local Swedish confections and pastries. I didn’t need to be told twice!

Though I didn’t realize at the time, I ordered a very traditional cream bun, otherwise known as “semlor.” I always have been a sucker for a good cream puff, but when I looked into the case at St. Agnes, these buns were in a league of their own. Dusted perfectly with powdered sugar against the perfectly golden surface and overloaded with stark white cream, each bun looked like it belonged in a museum. With a mug of coffee on the side, I sat down with my beautiful little bun and admired how lovely it looked before attacking it with a fork and knife. Sorry bun!

With each bite, a semla offers you a multitude of flavors and textures that I had never experience before. The chewy but airy bun worked in harmony with the almond-y marzipan paste and slightly sweet whipped cream that was sandwiched in between. Though the pastry looked quite sweet, it actually had a distinct nuttiness and cloud-like consistency, something that I never would have guessed upon first glance. The cream, though whipped to stiff peaks, was light and had only a hint of sweetness rather than the flavor of your typical whipped cream. The taste was heavenly. No seriously. Had I not been splitting the bun with a friend, I would have eaten an entire one by myself with zero regret and a chin full of cream.

Once home, I decided to look up the actual ingredients and baking of semlor. Though I have no plans on attempting to make these babies in my kitchenette, I was really curious to see how they were made. Turns out eating a semla was originally a treat on Fat Tuesday, but the bun became so popular they are now served in bakeries from Christmas until Lent! It wasn’t until I looked up the ingredients that I realized the paste in the bun was actually marzipan. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the nuttiness I was tasting in the moment, but it’s no surprise that marzipan is a star in this traditional pastry, since most European desserts seem to feature it in one way or another.

So, if you ever have the chance to try one of these Swedish buns of heaven, I strongly encourage you to order your own. If you end up like me and share one, make sure you get the bigger half!

Most normal people don’t describe lamb chops and homemade sausages as beautiful, but as I peer into the translucent glass case of Cleaver’s Meat Market, my jaw unconsciously drops. Something about the vibrant cuts of marbled reds and pinks, lined up in perfect stacks and rows, makes me feel like I’m at a museum, not a Danish butcher shop. Maybe it’s weird to appreciate something as ordinary as meat, but I quickly realize I am not the only one with an appreciation. Enter Steph.

Butchery is a relatively lost art in our day and age. In the states, finding a local butcher shop is a tall task, pushing most shoppers to simply buy all of their meat from the meat counter at Whole Foods or Stop & Shop. Not that there’s anything wrong with the convenience that a grocery store offers, but when you meet the people behind the counter at the butcher shop, it is easy to remember why these shops are such hidden gems.

Steph has been working as a butcher on and off since he was twelve years old. Clad in a white t-shirt and stained dark apron, he leans against the counter comfortably and says “Well, my name is Steph,” in a thick British accent with loose pronunciation. A ruggedly handsome guy in his early thirties, his dark stubble and gruff yet kind voice seems to make sense with his profession. As a young teen, Steph picked up a part-time job at the local butcher shop in the countryside of Ware, England. He described himself as a “Saturday boy” in the old-fashioned sense, where he would come after school and do whatever he was told to do, mostly cleaning and sharpening knives. Along the way, his boss, a skilled butcher, would teach him tricks of the trade, tricks that he still uses to this day. He explains, “I ended up getting all the fun jobs, people would bring in rabbits and deers and I would get the fun job of sorting them all out.” Growing up in the shop, he picked up the fundamentals overtime, emphasizing the traditional aspect of the job, where the butchers were cutting everything from start to finish. While I watch him work with another customer, he speedily hacks and slices a few pieces of beef with a terrifying ease for a man holding a giant knife. He looks over at my frightened stare and chuckles.

Steph’s lighthearted and accepting demeanor seem to drive why he loves his job so much at the Glass Market. He talks fondly about the diversity of people that stream into the market every day, both customers and shopkeepers. Steph explains that the Glass Market is “much more tolerant” than anything he’s experienced in England. “I’m never moving back to Brexit Britain,” illuminating his clear disdain for the current political state of his home country. “It’s insane to see the amount of people buying into it,” he adds and smirks at me. The value he places on tolerance and diversity in his place of work comes as a surprise to me. I’ve always pictured butchers to be a little rough around the edges. But Steph tells me his childhood was “an open happy” experience, one where he was taught to be “for the world not against it.” Of course, it is his type of work that is dying out in most places. There is only one remaining butcher school in England and “there is no such thing as a butcher’s university” in most places, besides Denmark. A brief online search confirmed my suspicions about the popularity of these universities in the US. There are few to none. The industry is rapidly thinning.

Behind me, the normal bustling activity of the market continues to flow on, but Steph calmly takes it all in, chuckling and groaning “shut up” at the incessant sound of a hacking cleaver from a counter across the way. He tells me, in between groans, about his work as a professional chef in between butcher gigs. He sighs, “[it’s] something I will never go back to.” Rattling off his accolades, beginning as a chef de partie at an English hotel and ending as the head chef after only a year there, Steph tells me he never even went to culinary school. “My mum was a chef and soon as I was old enough to reach the stove I cooked.” Steph’s eyes twinkle while he says this, as if that was all he really needed to explain where his love of food comes from. It’s been instilled in him from the day he could see over the counter.

I nod along in agreement, feeling a certain kinship with his relationship to food. I giggle when he tells me he was the only one who could actually cook in the restaurant, which is why he got promoted so quickly. It seems preposterous to me, simply by the amount of chefs I am familiar with that work their way through the ranks over the course of many years. Steph shrugs and his eyes twinkle, “I know basics, julienne and things like that.” Though the work was certainly helpful when he returned to the world of butchery, he lists the seventeen hour work day, four separate menus and prep work as reasons he can’t seem himself returning to any professional kitchen. “I don’t blame you,” I reply.

“[I never said] I’m gonna grow up and be a butcher, it’s not something people talk about,” Steph says glancing down at the rack of lamb that separates us between the glass. “I fell into it…for me I’m quite grateful…I get more appreciation for the job and the products we sell… and working here especially at Cleaver’s, we sell a great product and it makes you quite proud to sell it, I’m quite happy to sell everything.” He smiles as he says this, a genuine pride for his work and company more apparent than ever. Though he is the only one on shift as we chat, that doesn’t stop him from chattering on about his coworkers and all of the mates he has met who work in the other stalls at the market. “There’s all manner of people working here,” he says lovingly. He launches into multiple stories about various crazy nights out on the town with his buddies and the joy in his face reveals the deep fondness for the people he has met through this line of work. 

I can’t help but smile while I watch Steph talk, tracking his erratic hand gestures and belly laughs. He gushes again about the diversity of people he gets to interact with on a daily basis. “It’s such a blend of culture” he boasts. “It’s a fantastic place to work.” His statement is so genuine, I nearly want to drop everything and ask him to train me in the art of butchery too. I’m no expert, but Steph’s personable demeanor seems like a necessary trademark of this job. Butchers and their customers have the opportunity to form real relationships, where customers become regulars and butchers get to know what their customers love. There is a passion behind what butchers are selling and a yearning to share that passion. Butchers notice the people they interact with. I felt seen talking to Steph about food, and I desperately wanted Steph to know I had seen him too- that I had appreciated his dedication.

As I ask him what kind of sausage I should pick up for dinner, he immediately points to a beautiful pile of fresh links, “I just made and grinded this five minutes ago. You’ll love it.” I watch him expertly handle the meat and package it with nimble hands, motions I can tell he could do in his sleep at this point. I may have only ever been to one butcher shop before Cleaver’s, but as I got ready to leave, my gut told me I was going to become a regular at Cleaver’s. “Come back on Friday!” Steph exclaims as he rings up my purchase. “We’re getting an entire lamb in!”