Swedish cuisine at the beginning of the 18th century was not divided into starter-main-dessert. It was a table of subsistence where certain elements were always present: hard rye bread (knäckebröd) that kept for months, small beer (svagdricka) in the pitcher, and a single hot dish at the center — most often a thick soup or porridge. Meat was rare and marked a feast. People ate according to what the larder and the season allowed, soldier and king often sharing the same fare.

Swedish tradition attributes the introduction of kåldolmar — cabbage rolls inspired by Ottoman dolma — to Charles XII after his years of forced exile in Bender, in Turkish territory (1709–1714). True or embellished, this marriage of Nordic cabbage and rolled stuffing in the Eastern style remains the warrior-king's most famous culinary mark.