Kolbullar
Kolbullar are something from the past, when Sweden was an inhospitable backwater and the state and church were pushing anti-emigration propaganda in every newspaper and sermon. The name means "coal cakes" or "coal buns." They're traditionally associated with lumberjacks, charcoal burners, boatmen, lumber camp women, and other sorts of people who worked hard labor deep in the wilderness during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
They're nothing special, either. It's just flour, salt, water, and salt pork. Specifically, it was a kind of salt pork they called "Amerikafläsk," because it could last a trans-Atlantic voyage from the US. Sometimes, it was even imported from the US. The flour was often stretched with (at that time) cheaper wheat alternatives, like rye, barley, or spelt. This pancake was not necessarily for enjoying so much as it was for eating an extreme amount of calories very quickly. It was a survival food for miserable people who were always hungry and cold, and it was pretty much always washed down with shitty boiled coffee ("kokkaffe").
Today, the kolbulle is mostly made over a fire by campers and bushcraft-y types. It's not something you usually make at home. It's very much a survival food, or a novelty for people who like to "survive" recreationally or who romanticize "hard men" and the bad old days. Amerikafläsk is substituted for bacon, and batters these days skew more towards a "normal" pancake batter, with milk and eggs and sugar. Stretching your wheat with alternative flours is also not as economical anymore because all of those alternative flours are now heritage super-grains with huge price tags. They're only economical to use if you have a tiny amount left at the bottom of the bag that isn't enough for anything else. (Which is what I did, because I had a few tablespoons of buckwheat left over. That's why my pancake is so dark. Buckwheat is not traditionally consumed in most of Scandinavia, though. It's more associated with Central and Eastern Europe.)
Anyways, the kolbulle will keep your belly full if you are dealing with modern poverty. It will also put a bunch of calories in you in just a couple bites if you are struggling to eat and have the shakes. I would not recommend eating it as the main part of your diet, though. I can't imagine anybody in those lumber camps ever had a solid shit, considering they were substisting on kolbullar and black coffee. Those poor people!
WHAT YOU NEED
- 2-4 strips bacon, all diced up
- 100g flour (I used 90g wheat flour and 10g buckwheat)
- water (it's going to depend on your flour, but I used about 12 tbsp)
- a couple shakes of salt
- nontraditional shit if you're feeling fancy (i.e. add an egg or 1 tbsp sour cream to the batter, replace part or all of the water with milk, throw in 1 tsp sugar, etc. I added the sour cream, personally)
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HOW-TO
- Whisk the flour, salt, and water together. If you're adding extra stuff, whisk that in, too. Your batter should be slightly thicker than a normal Swedish pancake batter. Let this rest while you do the other stuff. If you're going to take it in the wilderness, pour it through a funnel into a rinsed-out soda bottle.
- Cook up your bacon in a smaller pan (I used a 10 inch nonstick one) over medium heat. I do the water trick, where you boil it in a little bit of water to render out all the fat and get it cooked more evenly. You can proceed when the bacon is just starting to crisp up and the lard is all rendered out.
- Pour in the batter and swirl it around so the pancake is of even thickness. Let it cook until the top sets, then flip it.
- Cook the pancake on both sides until they start to crisp up and brown. It's going to have a fried taste like a frybread rather than a traditional pancake-y taste, because kolbullar are something between a pancake and a frybread.
- Serve with sugared lingonberries or lingonberry jam. I put sour cream on there, too, because I love sour cream on a pancake.
TIPS AND TRICKS
- Those numbers are correct. It is 100g flour per serving, and that is a lot. That's the point.