Toast Skagen

The story

Toast Skagen was created by Tore Wretman, the Stockholm restaurateur who ran Riche and later Operakällaren and hosted radio programs that taught Swedish men to cook. According to his wife, Ewa, he was sailing in a regatta off Skagen, the fishing town at Denmark's northern tip, in 1956 when the wind died and his crew lost hope. To cheer them up he made a snack from what the galley held, shrimp, egg and oil whipped into mayonnaise, fish roe and bread, and named it after the place. He put it on the menu at Riche in 1958. Karin Chädström, who ran his cold buffet, held that the toast should be a round of white bread fried in butter, and she is credited with adding the dill and lemon. Later chefs adjusted it again: Erik Lallerstedt added horseradish, and many cooks now lighten skagenröra, the shrimp mixture, with crème fraîche or sour cream. Toast Skagen still appears in Stockholm restaurants such as Operakällaren and Den Gyldene Freden, and in museum cafés. The grandest versions are crowned with Kalix löjrom, vendace roe from the Bothnian Bay. Make the shrimp mixture an hour ahead and fry the bread just before you sit down, so it reaches the table warm and crisp.