Dine With The Danes is a program that matches visitors with Danish families for dinner.
Pork. Lots of pork. Before I headed to Denmark, I checked the government website and found a list of typical dishes: minced veal and pork meat balls (frikadelle), roast pork (flaeskesteg) and unsmoked bacon fried in the oven with apples (aebleflaesk).
Not a bad start - I love pork - so I signed up with the “Dine with the Danes” program in Copenhagen, a service that helps visitors meet and eat with Danish families.
“Dine with the Danes” matched us with the Rouws, a couple in their mid-thirties who live in downtown Copenhagen with their three daughters. She works as a magazine editor, he with a parents’ organization.
When the appointed night came, we walked through the eastern section of the city, an area dotted with ethnic stores and restaurants. Mike and I arrived at a three-storey brick building, buzzed the apartment, and a woman with strawberry-blond hair greeted us.
“Just hang your coats somewhere, we’re not very formal here,” Iben said as she ushered us into their hallway.
EATING IKEA-STYLE
The apartment looked like an IKEA magazine spread: light wood, tidy and modern. The two-and-a-half bedroom apartment was designed and furnished in a way that didn’t seem crowded. The building had a large inner courtyard with a playground and communal barbeque pit.
Moments later, Ton showed up with baby in tow. He offered us something to drink: beer, wine, soft drink? We decided on Tuborg -- made by Carlsberg, the only purveyor of beer in Denmark.
The Rouws’ daughters shyly circled us -- they understood some English but couldn’t speak it yet. Iben motioned us to sit down for dinner in their sun-filled kitchen. The baby amused herself on the floor
Dinner began with an appetizer of prawns in a cucumber dill sauce served in martini glasses.
Ton told us about the apartment, which they bought a few years ago. “There’s a courtyard where children can play. Everyone knows each other so it’s safe to leave them out there,” Ton said.
In our walks about Copenhagen, we had noticed that children seem to be everywhere in the capital.
“That’s the way it is here, we take the children everywhere,” said Ton.
INGESTING DANISH CULTURE
Iben was on a year’s maternity leave and Ton has nearly two months of holidays every year, with an extra two days a year for each child under seven.
By this time, we were digging into two pork tenderloin dishes: a simple roast and one stuffed with prunes. Iben took out oven-fried potatoes, celery root and beets and offered a green salad.
We talk a bit of politics learning that Denmark accepts the least amount of immigrants in the European Union: 32,000 a year. Immigrants account for five per cent of the 5.4 million population.
At this moment, we were digging into a delicious ice-cream cake with a walnut base.
They asked us our impressions of their country. We tried out some phrases from our guidebook, which had a tongue-in-cheek section called “How to Annoy or Charm a Dane.”
“Doesn’t your Queen have a dentist?”
Big laugh. They admitted Queen Margrethe had yellowed teeth because she smoked like a longshoreman, endearing her to the population. Iben says smoking is regarded as an inalienable right -- 34 per cent of adults in Denmark are smokers.
“Sweden was great…in the seventies”
This one brings a smile. Denmark once ruled Scandinavia and northern Europe during the Viking period from the eighth to the 12th centuries. Now, Sweden, with a population of more than eight million, is the dominant power in the region. Danes love to rail against the Swedes - like how drunk they get in other countries.
“Don’t you think candles make a place cosier?” I asked.
Another winner. “We love candles,” said Iben. “It’s part of our way of life. We have a concept of hygge (HOO-gah) which translates as ‘cosy.’ It’s the ultimate compliment.”
It was getting late. We had been in their living room for a couple of hours. Coffee, cookies and a fuel-laced cold liqueur called acquavit had been dispensed. The kids were in bed. Iben and Ton didn’t seem eager to be rid of us. We went on into the night discussing current events: Canadian politics, education, obesity and Denmark’s relationship to the EU (intricate).
It was now past 11, we decided to leave the Rouw family and their “Ikealized” life. We said our goodbyes and walked into the cool Copenhagen night, savouring the experience, the wonderful pork sloshing in our tummies.
