This Twitter thread tries to explain why some European countries don't offer food to guests

A viral Twitter thread has prompted many internet users to re-evaluate their appreciation of many European countries. A Twitter user @WallySierk shared an interesting series of posts on the hospitality and welcoming nature, or lack of it, in some European states.

In his thread, @WallySierk shared a map of Europe and marked countries based on if they would give food to a guest in their house.  The countries were categorised as “Very unlikely to give you food”, “Unlikely to give you food”, “Usually yes”, and “Almost always”.  The map had marked Scandinavian counties such as Norway, Finland and Sweden as “.

View the Twitter thread here:

This is blowing people’s minds, so as an amateur historian and sociologist I’m going to try to explain this development/ cultural artifact. pic.twitter.com/vNF0MMpMFK

— Honorable Speaker Bobson Dugnutt (@WallySierk) May 29, 2022

According to the viral post, Scandinavian countries were less likely to serve food to guests as historically, the onus of hospitality and putting food on the table was on the rich and powerful. According to the thread “hospitality not only brought honor to the giver, but it also had the potential to bring shame to the recipient.”

This proved fatal in times of unrest, particularly in the Middle Ages. In the 1800s, amid changing economic, social and political conditions, the Protestant Church tried to promote  “the idea of the free member of society, owing no one and owed nothing.”

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This actually led to the creation of a society that maximised self-sufficiency and minimised the idea of obligation or debt.

So, according to the Twitter thread, not serving food to your neighbour or friend’s kid was actually an attempt to ensure peace in the community. Internet users reacted with several hilarious tweets:

As someone that grew up in Sweden I’ve never heard this but I’m from northern Sweden so things may be different down south. However we have the culture of FIKA and people always try to push more fika on you, so this doesn’t make any sense to me.

— Melissa Cressey (@mcressey) May 30, 2022

Tangential, but it remind me of this banger https://t.co/z2h4GTbgOF

— NormalCarpetRide (@SaltyMcpheeters) May 30, 2022

The tweet was part of a debate that has taken social media by storm in the last few days. A viral post had claimed that people in Sweden did not feed their neighbour or friend’s children and even asked them to wait in the other room while they were eating dinner.

Not here to judge but I don’t understand this. How’re you going to eat without inviting your friend? pic.twitter.com/bFEgoLiuDB

— Seeker (@SamQari) May 26, 2022

The post prompted a variety of reactions, with several people expressing surprise at this instance, while others confirmed that they too had faced this thing.