After Swedish meatballs outed as Turkish, five other food fights over the origins of some favourite dishes
Sweden’s stunning confession that its national dish is based on a foreign recipe got us thinking about some other dishes and foods that two countries claim as their own, from kimchi to hummus to Pavlova
But, as shocked Swedes learned this week from their own government, Swedish meatballs – considered the national dish – are in fact Turkish.
“Swedish meatballs are actually based on a recipe King Charles XII brought home from Turkey in the early 18th century,” said a post on Sweden’s official Twitter account. “Let’s stick to the facts!” it said.
The post lit up Twitter, with users of the social media site expressing shock and sadness at the revelation that Sweden’s King Charles XII, who took the throne in 1697 at the age of 15, returned to Sweden in 1715 from several years in Bender (now Bendery in Moldova), which was then under Turkish rule, with a meatball recipe tucked in his bag.
It isn’t the first time a dish or food considered traditional in one country has been found, or suspected, to have its origin in another country.
1. Spaghetti – Italy vs China
No Italian would ever admit that spaghetti was invented in China rather than Sicily. The pasta, made from flour mixed with water and salt and cooked by boiling, has been around since the Roman empire. Yet some claim that the Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo brought spaghetti to Venice from East Asia, where he ate noodles, made either from rice flour or wheat flour, during his fabled travels.
