CFN – Upon first glance, you will find that the food here in Denmark is not all that different from the food in Denmark, but slowly, you will notice the little things. For one, canned food is fairly non existent in Denmark. Or, if you can buy it, it is most likely that it wont be bought.
Besides canned food, there are plenty of things food wise that are different from Canada, one of the most important ones being bread. Here you have a certain kind of rye bread called ‘rugbrød’ and it is used for open faced sandwiches. Things to put on the rye bread vary between meat to fish to eggs to jam. Anything imaginable, basically. Even things unimaginable!
The other kinds of bread that we have here is freshly made bread. Either bought or made, it is the kind of bread that one typically uses for breakfast. Then we have what we call ‘toast’, which is what we refer to as bread in Canada. (so that one joke of ‘what do you put in a toaster?’ that tricks the person into saying ‘toast’ wouldn’t exactly work here, because that is exactly what you put on/in the toaster.)
Generally, the food that we have here in Denmark is a lot healthier than what you would find in Canada; basically the entire ‘snack’ aisle that you find in grocery stores is non existent here. Also something that I was simply not used to was the fact that there are some fruits and vegetables that do not get imported to Denmark on a regular basis and or not to smaller stores. Strawberries, for example, I am used to them always being available to me at my beck and call in Canada, but it appears that there are none here in Denmark at this present time. The meals here generally consist of starchy foods, such as rice or pasta or potatoes. Or, on occasion, all three at the same time. Mostly, meal wise, you will find the same kind of foods as you would in Canada. The one thing is that they tend to have fish more often!
The candy here in Denmark is a bit different from what I’m used to, and mostly it seems to be gummy candy, licorice, or chocolate. And if there is one thing that a person needs to be warned of, it is most definitely the licorice! For some reason, the Danes (or maybe the entirety of Scandinavia as a whole) really love their salt, and this is reflected in their licorice. Licorice, or, as they call it, “Lakrids” is very salty here! It is something that takes time to get used to, that’s for sure!
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One of the things that I get asked a lot from people back in Canada, is how the Danish’s are here in Denmark, but the thing is, is that nowhere in Denmark can you actually buy a danish! However, they do have something that is similar to a danish, which they call wienerbrød, but that really puts a danish to shame!
Cheese is an entire different story as well. There is cheddar cheese, but that is known as the ‘expensive’ cheese, so it is not bought very often (in fact, the only time I’ve had cheddar cheese was when I bought some for my Thanksgiving celebration! …also when my social worker sent me some St.Albert’s in the mail, but that doesn’t count!). Besides cheddar, there is not any regular mozzarella cheese like in Canada, nor is there marbled cheese! There are hundreds of different kinds of cheese, and I still don’t even know how they choose one! I know that you can get these kinds of cheese back in Canada, but it just isn’t normal, or at least, it wasn’t for me! My current family’s favourite cheese is one that smells horrible, but tastes okay!
Tabatha Pilon is a 17 year old student from Cornwall Ontario spending a year in Denmark. She will be writing to us each week or as her “gymnasium” schedule allows.
