Crayfish and Drinking Songs

When I see crayfish, I want to party. Don't you? No? Well, in Sweden, there's a special ritual for eating the little lobster-like critters. First, you have to wear a pointy hat. Then, you have to drink a whole lot of caraway-flavored schnapps (spelled snaps here). And most importantly, you have to sing. I came across a huge party of otherwise sensible-looking elderly people doing this while I was out with Jenny and Alexis last week, and I thought for sure it someone's 80th birthday party.

Apparently, every time someone starts singing, you have to drink. In fact, from my experience so far, it seems like Swedes don't really drink hard liquor without singing. So I was at a pretty nice restaurant called Riche the other night with some American friends here for the GRID conference and the waitress brought us some snaps to drink with our herring appetizers. But none of us knew any songs! So I did my best charming foreigner impression and leaned over to a smartly dressed older gentleman (who turned out to be the Swedish ambassador to Cyprus) at the table next to me and said, "Excuse me, sir. Do you speak English?" And he said, "Why certainly." So I asked him if he would please teach me a drinking song. To my table's general delight, he and his dinner companions broke out into an unlearnable traditional song, in four-part harmony.

Unfortunately, I may not actually get a chance to join a crayfish party while I'm here, because they're always held in the month of August. Apparently my next opportunity to eat weird food and get drunk comes in October, during the fermented herring festival.