Literary Character Obsessions

I'm celebrating the pending final of Melodifestivalen with, what else? A semla.

You know something has a hold on the culture when literary characters are obsessed with it. Remember Wimpy from Popeye? The one who is always looking for a hamburger and would gladly pay you later for one today? Or how about Janet Evanovich's character Stephanie Plum who can't eat enough Tastykakes?

Sweden has an equivalent literary character from a children's book series written in the '40s and '50s. The main character, Sture Sventon, a private detective, solves crimes and lives near a bakery that makes semlor year 'round. Sture has a sweet tooth for the pastries and a slight difficulty pronouncing the letter -s, so his name becomes Ture and semlor become temlor.

Ture loves his temlor so much, he has a specially made container to transport them. Semlor appear in every single story. Sometimes, they play an important role in solving the crime. In "Ture Sventon in the Desert", someone steals his refrigerator stocked with 300 semlor and he jumps at the chance to solve the case!

Ture even has his own internet meme:

How in the heck am I supposed to hold all these temlor?, a meme using the pasted face of  Ture as portrayed in a 1970s Swedish film.

I just know Ture was onto something. I'm thinking of buying a fridge and stocking it before I get back to Texas. How much is it to ship a fridge filled with semlor internationally? I'll have to find out.