Since the 1960s and ’70s, Sweden has had a deep interest in Polynesian flavors, like bananas and pineapple, which were introduced in Swedish cookbooks to inspire home cooks. “Deep-fried bananas served [with] steak [or] veal [is] an early dish from the 1960s served at some restaurants,” Tellström says. “Bananas could be served along with ham, as a fancy dish for a Saturday night with the family watching TV. In the ’70s, a simple, everyday dish at home could be sausage filled with tomatoes, pineapple, mustard and ham. In the ’80s, deep-fried bananas [were] a common dessert at Chinese restaurants, and then served with ice cream and ginger syrup. You could use the new microwave to make an ‘Oriental chicken,’ a dish with chicken, curry, bananas and peanuts.”

This is Polynesian flavor to them? What?

One especially peculiar dish introduced in the 1970s is a casserole called the Flying Jacob, made with chicken, chili sauce, bacon and bananas, all topped with peanuts. A Swedish air-freight worker by the name of Ove Jacobsson concocted the surprising dish in 1976, when he haphazardly mixed together ingredients to have something to bring to a summer potluck. His neighbors, including Anders Tunberg, the editor of Allt om Mat (“All About Food”) magazine, enjoyed the hot dish, and Jacobsson’s recipe appeared in the September 1976 issue of the publication, ultimately leading to its nationwide popularity.

For the curious, it’s fairly easy to find banana curry pizza throughout Sweden. “Pizza in Sweden is in between street food and restaurant food,” Tellström says. “We have a lot of pizza shops in Sweden, probably more than there are McDonald’s, and there are plenty of those. Small villages in Sweden have pizza shops, and the pizza shops are familiar with this style, generally serving it.”

Many pizza shops end up adapting, understandably so, to what customers are asking for. “The pizza shops here are usually run by immigrants from Greece, Iran, Iraq, so they adapt this Swedish style of pizza,” Tellström explains. “If you go to a Swedish pizza shop, you can probably choose between 75 and 100 different pizzas. You can always do your own mixture of toppings on it, as well, so you choose your favorites, and that usually doesn’t cost anything extra.”

I don't know if it's good or worse that they prefer Swedish pizza over McDo. I mean, at least toppings of choice, with no extra cost

Kebab pizza, with kebab meat, pepperoni, yogurt sauce and vegetables, is another popular pie in Sweden. Ham is a common topping, too, sometimes with pineapple, mushrooms or even shrimp (for a little Swedish surf and turf).

Hmm... more conventional, I might try