The oldest name for the current Tiraholm is Tidhra, which dates back to 1414 when the squire Peter Gudmunsson was the head of the farm. Eneroth, Porat and Löfgren are other famous names who held the property before it was sold to a German sawmill company in 1896. In 1907 Tiraholm was bought by Strömsnäs Bruks AB. The legend of Ebbe Skammelson testifies to the mystery surrounding the farm as early as the 11th century.

I EKWALL’S OWN

In the early 1920s, a Stockholm woman named Maja fell ill with tuberculosis and needed fresh air. Doctors were consulted and the advice was that the air at Bolmen was clean and healthy. Thus her husband Per Ekwall bought Tiraholm in 1928. The couple had four children, one of whom was their son Gustaf who, together with his wife Theresia, became the owners of the farm on Bolmen’s beach twenty years later.

ABOUT FISH

Gustaf and Theresia practiced conventional farming with dairy farming and fishing as secondary activities. At the end of the 1950s, Gustaf started driving to the market square in Ljungby on Saturdays to sell mainly the popular bolmensik, but also pike, eel, perch and other fish from the lake. The extra income from the lake was certainly welcome as Gustaf and his wife Theresia were by now the parents of six children.

The little boy in this group of siblings is Nisse and together with his wife Vicky he has been running the farm since the spring of 1981 with fishing as his main occupation. His cousin Hugo, a fisherman in Lake Mälaren, was instrumental in getting professional commercial fishing with bottom nets up and running. Bottom trawling is a sustainable method of fishing where gear can be left in the lake all season. They are emptied at regular intervals and catch the fish alive, meaning that valuable and undersized fish can be returned to the lake unharmed.

When the farm was taken over, a rainbow trout farm was also started. At a steady pace, processing facilities have been refurbished, smokehouses built and rebuilt, boats bought and replaced.

FARM SHOP AND RESTAURANT

As Vicky and Nisse became more comfortable as fish farmers and in the meantime had children, Jens, Malin and Jonas, they were able to open one of Sweden’s first farm shops in 1988. The shop sold smoked, grilled, filleted and fresh fish from Bolmen long before the word “locally produced food” was thought of.

The shop became popular and to broaden the range, the couple started experimenting with pâtés and burgers. The step to a small food service was not so far, the threshold was renovated and in 1998 the doors to Tiraholm’s fish restaurant opened. The restaurant is probably the only pure lake fish restaurant in Sweden, and it has a completely local character. Pike perch, pike, eel and rainbow trout are cooked to your order.