Fika

“For God's sake Jimbo, I'm a Viking not a poolman!”

~ Oscar Wilde on fika

“teh shit!”

~ Chief O'Brien on fika

“Fika is a dish best severed cold”

~ Old Vulcan saying on fika

Fika is a swedish tradition going back to the days of the fearsome Vikings.

History

Historical documents show that even during the most violent battles, the Vikings regularly (often an hour or so into the battle, i.e., at 10 am) sat down together on the battlefield to enjoy a cup of black coffee. Although not practiced during all battles, sometimes a small bisquit (e.g., a meatball) was consumed in conjunction with the coffee.

Etymology

Traditional Viking rune stone. The word 'fika' is written to the right.

The word fika can be read on the old rune stones that are spread around Sweden. The science community has come to a consensus and today agree that fika is derived from the Viking words thrik and khobba (the letter 'f' was pronounced as thr in the viking age). The meaning of these two words is roughly too hard and work, respectively, thus fika means too hard work. For some weird reasons, fika is known to mean scissor in Italian. However, it is yet unclear whether vikings were ravaging and raping Italy at the time in question.

Physical strength enhancement

It has been clamied by famous astronomer, DeLorean-driver, benevolent dictator for life of the time-space-discontinuum and destroyer of space-time-continuum Carl Sagan, that the intake of coffee during the battle-fika-breaks induced massive flows of the bitter crystalline alkaloid $C_{8}H_{10}N_{4}O_{2}$, a.k.a caffeine, in the blood stream of the Vikings. Hence causing their violent behaviour, which is often referred to as going berserk. A different chemical, commonly reffered to as Jolt Cola, leads to the Philippine phenomenon: "to run Amok."

Contemporary traditions

In today's swedish society descendents of the Viking populate large areas of Sweden. Although mearly vaguely wiking-like, these people still cherish and are true to their Viking heritage. This is daily observable in that they still practice fika at regular hours throughout the day. However, the berserk behaviour is today suppressed due to strong rational reasoning and mental control. The latter shows another strong line of heritage in the Swedes, that is, the green blood of the Vulcan. However, there are clear trends that indicate that this tradition is not appriciated by new generation.