Kräftskiva — the Crayfish Party

Kräftskiva

Festival

August: crayfish boiled with enormous quantities of crown dill and salt, eaten cold outdoors with Västerbottensost pie, knäckebröd, paper hats, paper lanterns, snapsvisor and akvavit. The August timing comes from a real legal restriction — crayfish fishing was limited to a season from the 1900s after plague devastated the native stock — and the party grew around it. Most crayfish eaten today are imported signal or Turkish crayfish, which is part of the same story.