Smorgasbord
Smorgasbord is an anglification of the Swedish word Smörgåsbord. It is a buffet style table in a restaurant, or at home served at a holiday, prepared with many small dishes. For a fixed amount of money, you are allowed to eat as many of these as you wish. In an extended meaning, it is used to refer to any situation which invites you to select as many as you wish among several pleasant things, such as the smorgasbord of university courses, books in a book store etc.
A traditional Swedish smörgåsbord consists of both hot and cold dishes. It is customary to begin with the cold fish dishes (generally various forms of herring, salmon, eel etc), continue with the other cold dishes, and round off with the warm dishes (of course including meatballs, and other Swedish specialties like Janssons frestelse). There may or may not be desserts.
Christmas Smorgasbord
Julbord is the name of the traditional smörgåsbord served at Christmas in Sweden. Like an ordinary smorgasbord it contains many different dishes, but most of them are typical for the season. The main dish is a large Christmas ham, which is eaten with mustard or bread along with the other dishes.
Etymology
The Swedish word "smörgåsbord" comes from smörgås = sandwich and bord = table. "Smörgås" (sandwich) in turn comes from smör = butter and gås = pieces of butter formed on top of cream when churning butter. Jul is the word for Christmas in Swedish, and it has the same root as yule in the English language.
See also
