November 30: National Day of traditional Swedish Sarmalas or how others can

While Swedish meatballs have long been famous (also) in our country thanks to a famous furniture manufacturing company, less well known is the fact that in Sweden sarmales (usually served with brown sauce, along with boiled potatoes and cranberry jam) are, and them, a traditional food that the Swedes are proud of and to which they even dedicated a national day.

Sweapons (kåldolmar, in Swedish) are attested in Sweden for the first time in a famous cookbook published in 1755: Hjelpreda I häuslningingen för unga Fruentimber ("Household Guide for Young Women"), written by Cajsa Warg*, a no less famous cook, who cooked for the greats of the time, and whose culinary art was sung in verse by the famous Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman . This "guide" - in fact, a full-fledged cookbook, as it mostly contained culinary recipes - was a huge success (no less than 14 editions), becoming a must-have book in the culinary field for many generations, until the 20th century.
Warg's published recipe is for sarmals in vine leaves, but since vines do not grow on all roads in Sweden, at the end of the recipe the author suggests that those who do not have access to vines use pre-boiled cabbage leaves. Sarmales in cabbage leaves (with a filling of minced pork, rice and sauteed onions) quickly became popular in Sweden, then in other Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark), the Swedes being proud of this national food, which, so as I mentioned above, they dedicated one day a year to celebrate it properly.
(It should be said in parentheses, because it comes to this cookbook: also in Warg's "Household Guide for Young Women" the recipe for the meatballs that will become the "culinary brand" of Sweden appears for the first time).
National Sarmales Day (Kåldolmens Dag) is celebrated in Sweden every year on November 30. The celebration was established quite recently (in 2010), at the initiative of the Association "Prietenii Sarmalelor", which mainly used Facebook to promote the event. If in the first year it gathered only a few hundred people (in the King's Garden in Stockholm), in 2013 it had already gained national scope, being, as a result, institutionalized, by organizing official events within the Swedish History Museum.
But why is this day celebrated precisely on November 30 and why is the symbolic place of the celebration the King's Garden in Stockholm?
The answer is related to a great victory of Tsar Peter the Great: the defeat, at Poltava, of King Charles XII of Sweden, the "Unconquered Lion", in 1709 - the year of the end of Sweden as a Great Power and the beginning of the story of the Swedish sarmals. After this defeat, Carol self-exiles to the Ottoman Empire, where he will spend almost six years and from where he will return to his native country accompanied by some Turkish creditors from whom he had borrowed money for the Great Northern War. The Turks remained in Stockholm for 17 years (until 1732), during which time official history tells us that both sarmales and – surprisingly? – "Swedish meatballs". As there is a statue of Charles XII in the King's Garden in Stockholm, and he died on November 30, 1719, it is easy to understand why the "Friends of the Sarmales" from Sweden chose this place and this date.

If the above story is quasi-unknown - at least here -, even less known is the fact that King Charles XII left Sweden accompanied by about 1000 courtiers, with whom he shared the exile and it seems, according to some sources for which, in the absence of other historical documents, we do not put our hands in the fire, that he got the taste for oriental dishes in... Bessarabia! More precisely, in Varnița, near the Tighinei Citadel - border fortress and important customs point of the Principality of Moldova, which became a Turkish stronghold during the time of Petru Rareș, where he spent the first part of his exile.
"Interested in culinary art, he taught these lands to cook himself, and it is documented that he made this, pan-fried meatballs [chic!] and sarmales in cabbage leaves (sweet!), minced pork dishes that the king introduced to Sweden, where they are still considered Swedish national dishes and can be bought ready-made prepared, in all major grocery stores in Sweden. Since Islam forbids eating pork, it is clear to us that the king's sources of culinary inspiration were of a Moldavian Christian nature" (Octavian Ciupitu, 2005).
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NOTE:
* Cajsa Warg is roughly pronounced [Káisa Várie]

Photo: https://foodemperor.com/classic-swedish-kaldolmar/

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Selective Bibliography:

• Octavian Ciupitu, Cultural events in Stockholm, "Romanian Courier", year 25, no. 301-303, October-December 2005, p. 17
• Janet Clarkson Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 Years of World Culinary History, Culture and Social Influence, vol I, Rowman&Littlefield, Plymouth, 2014, p. 1173
• Infogalactic
• Wikipedia
• Master Megen: Kåldolmens dag – Cabbage Roll Day
• International Policy Digest: Middle Eastern Culture Wars: The Battle of the Palates
• Food Emperor
• Atlas Obscura: The Turkish Roots of Swedish Meatballs
• John Nistor, History of Bessarabia, Cartea Moldoveneasca, Chisinau, 1991-1992, p. 140