The king that became a cake

Last Tuesday, on the 6th of November we celebrated "Gustav Adolfsdag". Gustav II Adolf den Store, or Gustav Adolphus the Great is the most important king of the Swedish History. Like Louis XIV for us in France or Elizabeth 1st for England for instance. Gustav II Adolf died in Lützen, Germany (near Leipzig) the 6th of November 1632. The day of his death has always been celebrated in Sweden and, until it was decided that the 6th of June would be the official National Day, the 6th of November was kind of fulfilling this function.

The celebration of this day is particularly important in Göteborg because he is the founder of my adoptive town. At that time, this precise location was the only Swedish territory on the West Coast because the Norwegian boarder was a few kilometers north and the Danish boarder a few kilometers south. Gustav Adolf decided to establish a town here in 1619.

If you want to read more about Gustav Adolf or Göteborg, check Wikipedia, there's plenty of material about all this. And in your own language as well.

But the interesting thing about this celebration is that it includes food. And this is sooooo typical about Sweden. They do not have as many bank holidays as we have in France for instance (well, for starters, they were not involved in two world wars... ). Even their national day was a regular "work day" until 3 or 4 years ago. But when they are celebrating something, it ALWAYS include food! Midsummer is about Sill (herring) and Aquavit, in August you have the Kräftskiva with crayfishes, on the 4th of october, it's Kanelbullensdag (Cinnamon rolls day), then this Gustav Adolf's day, apparently the 17th of November is some kind of Napoleon's day with more or less the same cake as Gustav Adolph's day, and the whole advent season and Christmas are filled with special seasonal food.

Why is that?