The culinary habits of the Danes
If the morgenmad (breakfast) is quite solid, based on eggs, cold cuts and bread, the frokost (lunch), more frugal, is most often taken outside in the form of sandwiches, smørrebrød, or hot dogs sold in pølsevogn. As soon as the weather is fine, the Danes particularly like to have lunch in the parks and most restaurants have open terraces. Theaften (dinner) is generally made up of hot dishes, which are rarer at lunchtime.
Some soups are popular starters, such as gule ærter, a thick split pea soup served with salt pork. The lighter hønsekødssuppe is a chicken broth served with melboller (small flour balls), meatballs and vegetables. Alternatively, try tarteletter, usually savory tarts with a variety of fillings, although traditionally they are filled with a mixture called høns i asparagus, a creamy chicken and asparagus filling.
The king of snacks: the smørrebrød
Among all these snacks, the Danes have magnified one to the point of making it a true emblem of their cuisine: the smørrebrød, which literally translates as "butter and bread". It consists of a thin slice of dark bread covered with a salty filling. The classics include shrimp, herring, smoked fish (salmon, eel, halibut, haddock), scrambled eggs, cold roast(saltkød), etc. All of this is often seasoned with mayonnaise. There are more than two hundred varieties and new ones are invented every day. The smørrebrød must first of all be colorful and attractive, some are decorated with great finesse.
The bread generally used is the famous rugbrød, based on sourdough rye, quite dense, also emblematic of Danish cuisine. Other breads are also used such as franskbrød (white bread or French bread!), rundstykker, individual round bread (wheat or multi-grain) or birkes horn, local variant of the croissant. In addition to the classic toppings, one can add gravad laks (gravlax), salmon semi-cooked in salt and flavored with dill, as well as several types of cold cuts, including the famous Danish salami(spegepølse), liver pâté(leverpostej) or rullepølse, a rolled ham flavored with herbs.
Cheeses are also popular: fresh cheese(hytteost), samsø, vesterhavsost and molbo, similar to gouda, mycella (a blue cheese), or havarti, known for its melting and slightly grainy texture. There are also various fillings such as sauerkraut, raw vegetables, coleslaw (a creamy salad made of cabbage and grated carrot), etc.
Meat or fish
Although the Danes are becoming increasingly fond of beef and chicken, pork accounts for about half of the meat consumed in the country. Traditionally served at Christmas, flaeskesteg med rødkål, is a tasty roast pork with crispy grilled rind. It is usually served with candied red cabbage(rødkål) and caramelized potatoes(brunede kartofler). The simpler stegt flæsk med persillesovs consists of grilled bacon served with steamed potatoes and a creamy parsley sauce. The æbleflæsk, a dish of bacon with apples, is a very old specialty, as is the black pudding(blodpølse). Sausages(pølse) are very common in Denmark and there are various kinds, smoked, fresh or dried. Probably the tastiest is medisterpølse, a finely spiced knife sausage. Kartoffelsalat or potato salad - seasoned with mayonnaise and chopped onion - is often served as a side dish.
Other meats are also enjoyed at Christmas, such as the traditional goose(stegt gås) and roast duck(stegt and), stuffed with apples, prunes and thyme, although these have gradually been replaced by pork, which is more accessible and cheaper. Påskelam (Easter lamb) is grilled with herbs and garlic. Beef is also popular and bøf béarnaise - served with French fries - is on every restaurant menu. Culottesteg is a roast sirloin of beef with herbs, served with potatoes and green salad. Pariserbøf is similar to a half-cooked steak tartare, served on a slice of toasted rye bread and garnished with a raw egg yolk and condiments: capers, raw onion, gherkins and chopped parsley. Very popular are the frikadeller (fricadelles), which are meatballs made of half beef and half pork, and the fiskefrikadeller, where fish replaces the meat.
Indeed, with some 7,300 km of coastline between the North Sea and the Baltic, not counting the Faroe Islands and Greenland, seafood is traditionally common in Danish cuisine. Cod, caught in the North Sea, is prepared poached, dressed with melted butter and seasoned with mustard sauce (remoulade in local language). The rødspættefilet is a filet of plaice prepared in a floury and browned manner. Herring or sild is served as smørrebrød, marinated in brine(spegesild), smoked(røget sild), fried(stegte sild i eddike). There are more than twenty preparations. Sol over Gudhjem - literally "sun over Gudhjem", a village on the island of Bornholm - is a recipe for smoked herring with raw egg yolk and radishes, chives, onions, all on dark bread. Otherwise, small North Sea shrimps with a cocktail sauce(rejecocktail) are served as an appetizer, as are oysters, which are very popular with the Danes.
A beautiful menu of desserts
For a small country, Denmark has a great diversity of pastries and pastries. The spandauer, a type of puff pastry often filled with cream or chocolate, the kringle - common in Northern Europe - a kind of large puff pastry pretzel filled with apples or marzipan and covered with white icing, and of course the fastelavnsboller, small buns filled with whipped cream and covered with chocolate. Note that these pastries are usually not served as a dessert but as a snack with a hot drink.
For dessert, we prefer entremets, which are legion, especially since the Danes seem to be passionate about whipped cream, which can be found everywhere. We can mention theæblekage, a verrine composed of layers of apple sauce, crushed cookies and makroner (an almond-flavored meringue), crowned with whipped cream and sometimes red currant jelly(æblekage med flodeskum in this case). Otherwise, the very fresh lemon-cheese is a lemon mousse lightened with egg whites in snow, which is decorated with... whipped cream. The karamelrand is simply an egg cream flavored with caramel, sometimes molded into a ring shape. The fløderand is more like a bavarois, very white, flavored with vanilla that is served in summer with red fruits, or with canned fruits the rest of the year.
Otherwise, the classic pandekager, French-style thin pancakes, are served with a variety of fillings. Rødgrød med fløde is a summer soup made with red fruits (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and rhubarb). More frugal, but still popular, is koldskål, sweetened buttermilk, served cold in summer with shortbread called kammerjunker. Risalamande is a recipe for vanilla rice pudding, bound with whipped cream - again! - and sprinkled with chopped almonds, served cold with a cherry sauce(kirsebærsovs). It is most often served on Christmas Eve. Another festive dessert is the impressive kransekage: a ring-shaped stack of almond cookies decorated with white icing. This tree-shaped cake is served for special events.
Finally, there are some classic pastries such as gåsebryst, a sponge cake crowned with a dome of whipped cream and jam, camouflaged under a thin layer of marzipan, or othellolagkage, a multi-layered cake made of sponge cake, chocolate icing and marzipan.
The drinks
All these pastries are eaten with coffee. The Danes are crazy about it: they consume about 8.7 kg per year per capita, making them the fourth largest consumers in the world. The classic black coffee is the most common, but of course most cafés also serve espressos, lattes or cappuccinos. Hot chocolate(kakaomælk) is also very popular. In the summer, people traditionally sip hyldeblomstsaft, a sweet elderflower drink, which is occasionally served warm in the winter.
Of all the alcoholic beverages consumed in Denmark, beer, called øl, has been by far the most popular for thousands of years. Carlsberg and Tuborg are two major Danish producers with notable exports, competing in recent years with Royal Unibrew. Another emblematic alcohol isakvavit, also called snaps. This potato alcohol is 40° and flavored with dill and caraway seeds. The mjød is the legendary mead of the Vikings, made of water and fermented honey, with a strength of 10 to 18°. In winter, we appreciate the gløgg or mulled wine, based on red wine, brandy and sherry enhanced with raisins and almonds. Spiced with cloves and cinnamon, it is inseparable from Christmas. As for the wine - increasingly popular - it is mostly imported, although a national production - very localized - in the Jutland peninsula is developing.
The gastronomic revival of Denmark
Since 2004, the advent of the "new Nordic cuisine" has revolutionized Danish gastronomy and brought forgotten products back into fashion. Traditional dishes have been rediscovered and/or revisited and brought to the fore. chef René Redzepi opened NOMA in 2004, and the British magazine Restaurant named it "best restaurant in the world" in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014. Denmark has 48 Michelin-starred establishments, including 5 new ones in 2023.
This renowned chef first worked at Le Bulli in 1999, a Spanish restaurant near Barcelona that was nominated five times for the title of best restaurant in the world, then in the USA and Denmark, before teaming up with Claus Meyer - a Danish culinary author who is often regarded as the father of the "new Nordic cuisine" or Det nye nordiske køkken. NOMA (3rd Michelin star in 2021) opened its doors in a former warehouse, transformed into the Maison de l'Atlantique Nord, a cultural center dedicated to this region of the world. Located in the Christianshavn district, near the Greenland Trade Square, the building was originally used to store goods from all regions of the Far North. On the plates, Finnish caviar, Faroese sea urchins, cod liver and lingonberry-marinated beef are combined with mushrooms, forgotten root vegetables, wild berries, lichen, pine shoots and moss. In this way, the menu, which changes with the seasons, is a tribute to nature, and the plates resemble landscapes. In 2024, NOMA will close its doors to reinvent itself as a culinary laboratory!
Inspired by René Redzépi, a growing number of young Danish chefs have opened their own restaurants. Today, the capital boasts 14 Michelin-starred restaurants. In 2022, the Geranium, led by chef Rasmus Kofoed, became Best Restaurant in the World. Most of these restaurants have had a positive impact on local eating habits. Accustomed to hamburgers, paninis, pizzas and other fast-food takeaways, Danes are rediscovering smørrebrød and other traditional specialties with happiness and pride. It's fair to say that over the past twenty-five years, Copenhagen has truly become a laboratory for the very best in Nordic cuisine. Today, chef Bo Bech has opened his new BOBE, while chef Rasmus Munk is shaking things up at his new establishment, l'Alchimiste. His cuisine tackles topical themes: politics, ecology, sociology... and it can be disturbing!
