Today’s word is one of Sweden’s favourite berries.

Lingonberries, or just lingon as the Swedes call them, go by many names across the English-speaking world, so you might know them by a different name. The most used is either lingonberry (which actually comes from Swedish) or cowberry, but in different places they are called partridgeberry, mountain cranberry, foxberry, quailberry, bearberry, beaverberry, red whortleberry, lowbush cranberry, cougarberry, mountain bilberry, redberry, and so on. Apparently there are nearly 30 different names. The reason for the many names is probably that the plant grows in boreal forest and Arctic tundra throughout the Northern Hemisphere – that is to say in Europe, Asia, and North America. Lingon are a staple of Swedish cuisine. Having trouble finding them because you are abroad? Well, fret not, IKEA, the unofficial Swedish embassy, sells them at all their stores. Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading The Local's app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button Here are a few dishes: raggmunk med fläsk och lingon (potato pancakes with pork and lingon) kroppkakor med mangold och kålrabbi (potato dumplings with beet leaves and Swede), Wallenbergare (see here), köttbullar med rot eller potatismos (meatballs with mashed root vegetables or potato). Usually the lingon come in the form of lingonsylt, which is lingonberry jam, or rårörda lingon, literally ‘raw-stirred lingonberries’, which are frozen lingon that you top with sugar and heat in a pan until they are thawed and the sugar dissolved. Also called sweetened lingon. Both of these are used to add a sweetness to savoury dishes. For more ideas just google ‘maträtt med lingon’ (‘dish with lingonberries’) and you will find a plethora of dishes. Lingon are also used to make desserts and drinks, and you can be sure that Swedes across the nation are hard at work expanding the ever growing list of dishes and drinks containing them. Lingon are in fact so ubiquitous that they have made their way into the lexicon of Swedish expressions. Lingonvecka, meaning ‘lingon week’, is a Swedish way of saying that it’s ‘that time of the month’. The expression is quite popular, and was even the name of a line of feminine hygiene products from Swedish company Renée Voltaire (yes, that's a very French name for a Swedish company).