Interest in self-sufficiency, self-provisioning, and home-grown produce is growing, and an old faithful is making a comeback. The cool cellar is hot.
The first time Kjell Gustafsson held a course in maintenance and renovation of cellars, he wondered if he had come to the right place when he was met by a room full of young women.
But it was right. And so it has been pretty consistently.
Kjell Gustafsson often holds his courses through county administrative boards. They usually get fully booked immediately.
The typical course participant, he describes, is a woman who has started growing her own food, some for the peace of mind it gives them, others because they want to know what they are feeding their children.
And suddenly they have 150 kilos of potatoes and think "Good grief, what do I do now?"
Potato Breakthrough
This is where the cellar comes into the picture. The roots go all the way back to the potato breakthrough in Sweden.
We did have potatoes, but the thing was that people were just so sceptical about them. Until a noblewoman named Eva Ekeblad discovered that you can distil spirits from potatoes – and then it really took off.
Then it was a good staple food, which we still have today. How would it be in a household today without potatoes?
There are cellars from the 19th century that are still in use. But if potatoes and parsnips start to shrivel up "like an old rubber skin" the air humidity is too low. The optimal air humidity is a whole 85–90 per cent.
Many react to the fact that it's damp when it's dripping from the ceiling. But it's not that strange, when the warm summer air comes into the cold cellar, it condenses.
Can Be Saved
Building a new cellar requires a building permit from the municipality. The majority of those who come to Kjell Gustafsson's courses are there to learn how to take care of older cellars. He emphasizes that almost all of them, regardless of whether they date back to the preparedness era or earlier, can be saved.
The main thing is that they are airtight and that the ventilation works. If it's dripping in, there's something wrong with the sealing. It may have grown trees or bushes with roots that are seeking in.
The first thing you should look at is the cellar's vault.
Most of them have a vault just like in a church. There shouldn't be stones that have fallen out, because then the tension is gone and more can fall out.
The most common problem Kjell Gustafsson encounters is that the ventilation gets clogged, a cellar must have an inlet and outlet.
If you don't have air flow, you get that nasty cellar smell. And it affects the taste too.
Ventilation is often a channel sloping upwards from the back wall or ceiling. Air exchange occurs through ventilation openings in or adjacent to the doors. The doors are also one of the things you often need to fix on old cellars.
Causes Cracks
If trees or bushes with roots above the cellar are swaying, it can cause vibrations that cause cracks.
If you discover that it's dripping in from the ceiling, you must clear away the insulating soil layer and put on new sealing.
In the past, people used birch bark, today Kjell Gustavsson recommends modern solutions like insulation mats or damask. On top of that, a 50–70 centimetre soil layer where grass grows over time.
Perfect Beer Temperature
Is there then something that shouldn't be stored in the cellar?
Onions don't thrive in the damp. And when it comes to apples, I usually say put them on the north side of the house with a cloth over them, they can handle minus degrees pretty well too.
The perfect cellar temperature is between four and six degrees Celsius in winter and eight to ten in summer. A common comment on the courses is that it's exactly the right temperature for beer. Wine can also be stored in the cellar with advantage.
But if you plan to store wine for a longer period, Kjell Gustafsson recommends putting a transparent plastic bag over it.
The humidity makes the labels come off otherwise. Then you don't know if it's a wine for 800 or 79 kronor.
Cellars exist all over the country, but they differ depending on where they were built.
In Småland, it's often grey stone that was picked up on the fields. In Mälardalen, almost every cellar has a brick vault – there was a building boom and you could buy second-hand stones cheaply. In Bergslagen, you'll almost always find vaults made of slag stone. The principle is that people took what was available and cheap.
It's also possible to date cellars fairly accurately based on how they were built. In the 19th century, they were usually built in natural stone, in the 20th century, hewn stone was used. Later, they were built with cement.
As more households got refrigerators, the cellars stopped being used.
