I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I managed to leave an entire bag of groceries on the ferry from Oskarshamn. There I was, standing on the deck of the Gotland ferry, smugly sipping a coffee and admiring the Baltic, while my carefully selected stash of Swedish cheeses, crispbread, and a rather ambitious cut of pork languished in the terminal shop. By the time I realised, we were halfway across. My partner found this hilarious. I found it character-building.

The drive north up Oland felt appropriately penitential after that. The island unspools in this extraordinary flatness, all limestone pavement and dry stone walls, with the odd windmill nodding in the distance like a distracted acquaintance. We turned off toward Byxelkrok and found our cottage at Haelludden perched among low pines, looking out toward the Kalmarsund. First impression: the smell of pine resin and salt, and a kitchen that was going to see some serious action whether it liked it or not.

The cottage kitchen proved to be compact but oddly well-equipped, as if someone with genuine cooking intentions had once stayed here and left their mark. A proper cast iron pan. A fish kettle. A pestle and mortar that looked like it had actually been used. I unpacked our remaining provisions - some sad carrots, a jar of pickled herring that had survived the ferry, and emergency pasta - and felt the competitive urge that possesses otherwise reasonable people on self-catering holidays. I would cook properly here. I would conquer local ingredients.

Byxelkrok itself is barely a village, more a scattering of houses and a harbour where small boats nod against weathered jetties. The harbour shop became my morning pilgrimage. It stocks the essentials with a distinctly local accent: jars of cloudberry jam, packages of gravlax, blocks of Vasterbotten cheese that crumble in that particular way. I became slightly obsessed with their smoked fish selection, standing there in my inadequate jacket while the woman behind the counter patiently explained the difference between various herring preparations. My Swedish extends to about twelve words, seven of them food-related, so these conversations involved much pointing and appreciative nodding.

The real discovery was the Saturday market, a modest affair that sets up near the harbour with perhaps a dozen stalls. Here I found the potatoes that Oland is properly famous for - small, waxy varieties that taste intensely of themselves. An elderly woman sold eggs from hens that apparently lived within shouting distance. I bought dill that was still damp from someone's garden, and tomatoes that actually tasted of something, which feels increasingly miraculous.

Back at the cottage, I attempted what I grandly called "interpretive Swedish home cooking." The first evening's herring with new potatoes and sour cream was straightforward enough. The second evening I got ambitious with a fish soup using locally caught pike-perch, and learned that cream-based soups require more attention than I gave them while distracted by sunset-watching. We ate it anyway, slightly separated but honest, with that Vasterbotten cheese grated over dense rye bread.

My partner, who possesses the patience I lack, produced proper pancakes on our third morning using the cottage's ancient but reliable pan. We ate them with the cloudberry jam and strong coffee, sitting outside in jumpers because Swedish summer mornings demand them. That became our ritual: slow breakfast, market or shop expedition, then cooking with whatever looked promising.

One evening I attempted to replicate a smoked fish spread I'd tasted somewhere, combining the harbour's hot-smoked mackerel with butter, dill, and too much horseradish. The result was aggressive but weirdly moreish. We ate it on crackers with local beer, watching the light fade across the water, and I felt that particular satisfaction of feeding yourself from a place, however imperfectly.

The kitchen at Haelludden absorbed my experiments without judgement. By week's end I'd produced meals ranging from genuinely good to educational failures, and had accumulated a small collection of local provisions: more jam, a suspiciously strong snaps, dried mushrooms I wasn't entirely sure how to use. The lost ferry groceries became a running joke rather than a tragedy. Some things, it turns out, you can only find by leaving others behind.