Swedish Meatballs: Our Family's Christmas Classic 

My father's parents, Ingrid and Bengt, grew up in Sweden, though they met each other in the United States. When they started a family, they tried very hard to assimilate. They didn't teach their kids Swedish and they did the Boston Globe's crossword puzzle every week to improve their English vocabulary. They named their first three children James, John and Joan, which forced them to practice the English "J" sound, one that the Swedish do not use. They were proud of their Swedish heritage, but were determined to become Americans. Simple as that.

However, Christmas was a different matter.  My grandparents didn't have a turkey dinner or a Christmas ham. No, Christmas meant a Swedish Christmas buffet. My late father continued his parents' tradition with added vigor, using it as an excuse to cook all of the Swedish food he knew how to make. He would spend days in the kitchen, carefully laying out labeled serving dishes on multiple tables, ready to fill with the abundance of dishes we prepared using recipes gathered from at least half a dozen cookbooks. Visiting Swedish relatives have told us that we overdo the julbord, the Swedish word for the Christmas table.  Of course we do. We are American, after all.

I still vividly remember my dad's last Christmas. He was so happy to show all of us how to make the dishes he customarily made by himself. My sister was taught how to make Swedish cabbage rolls. Mom learned his secret to the Christmas liver pate. My husband and I got lessons on Swedish Christmas sausage. My other sister got the finer points of Swedish deviled eggs.

One dish that we didn't need instructions for was Swedish meatballs. The recipe is one my grandmother and grandfather perfected through the years. In America, "swedish meatballs" seem to be synonymous with any small meatball in cream sauce spiked with nutmeg. But this is not the way our family enjoys them.  My grandparents' recipe was clear: The only spices you need are salt and white pepper.

Our Swedish meatballs are made of equal parts beef and pork, ideally ground together by the butcher. Since your friendly neighborhood butcher can be hard to come by these days, we settle for buying ground meat and then running it either through a meat grinder or pulsing it in a food processor. The key is getting a finer grind of meat than what you typically find in pre-packaged ground meat.

The real fun, though, comes in the rolling. Many hands do indeed make light work, and your winter-chapped hands will thank you for the moisturizing they get from the fat in the meat. You'll want to make these meatballs small, only about a tablespoon each. And, instead of the traditional browning in a pan, my grandparents always broiled the meatballs carefully, until browned on all sides, before transferring to a pot full of pan drippings and water, where they would simmer away until fully cooked.

If you must serve these with a cream sauce, be my guest. I prefer them with a dollop of lingonberry jam (a relative of cranberry sauce), which you can find at IKEA, or the better-stocked international aisles of some grocery stores. This recipe makes about 100 meatballs, enough for a crowd. You can also freeze them after they're cooked to enjoy anytime.

My family spent a day last weekend with my mother, making Swedish meatballs and other dishes for our annual Swedish Christmas feast. We worked side by side and, somehow, 100 meatballs didn't seem that daunting at all.