Kvarg
Here’s Your Learn Swedish Word of the Day 
(en) kvarg – quark; quark cheese; tvorog
Hur mycket kvarg åt du igår kväll? (How much quark did you eat yesterday?)
Alright, unless you are a serious athlete or have russian parents, you
probably don’t even know what quark (or tvorog) is, so let me explain. It is
a special kind of dairy product that resembles a cheesy yogurt. Much like
the aforementioned products, lactic acid bacteria are added until
acidification reaches a pH of about 4.6. Getting the pH to this level is
what precipitates casein proteins.
So what’s so special about casein proteins? Well, as any of your bodybuilder
friends will tell you, casein proteins are absorbed very slowly. When you
eat quark, it’s almost like taking a handful of time-released protein pills.
“Okay, what good is that for?” you wonder.
Good question. You see, as you mostly likely already know, training hard
breaks down muscle tissue and in order to build that tissue back up you need
to supply your body with adequate protein. However, when you go to sleep at
night after a long day of training, your are literally starving your muscles
for around 8 hours during your slumber. At times this can be rather
detrimental for competitive athletes. A great solution is to load up on
casein proteins right before you go to bed, and what better way to do that
than to eat a few hundred grams of quark.
So now you know what that is. However, seeing how this is a language blog
and not a health and fitness blog, let’s get back to the peculiarity of this
word when it comes to the Swedish language. But first, back to English…
You know how we call those things that you clean your ear with “Q-tips” even
though they are really called cotton swabs? Or what about calling facial
tissue “Kleenex”? Or lip balm “Chap Stick”? In common speak, a brand name
can often become the actual nomenclature for a given noun. Interesting,
isn’t it? Well Swedes often do the same thing, and one of the nouns they do
this with is quark.
You see, for many years a brand called “Kesella” dominated the quark market,
so most Swedes do not even know that the real word for this very special
product is actually “kvarg”. Here at Speak Swedish Stupid, however we think
that our students should know both versions in order to properly prepared
whilst conversing with a Swede.
Hope you learned a lot this time. If you really wanna learn Swedish inside
and out, then you owe it to yourself to pick up the “Find Your
Flow” course at www.SpeakSwedishStupid.com . It’s the first and LAST
program you will ever need to learn Fluent Swedish!!!
Ha det bra!
Prof Paul