A Real Nor(dic)'Easter

As the majority of Danish business establishment refuse to return to normal operating hours, Easter 2010 rages on. While celebrating on Saturday with some fellow Tigers (teammates, not real big cats), the Easter holiday was explained as follows:

"Yeah, Christmas and Easter. That's about it in DK. You gotta take 'em as you get 'em."

In this case, you get 'em for about an entire week at a time. I suppose this rationale makes sense. Many observed United States holidays usually materialize into three or four-day-weekends. You take enough of those away and I guess you have to make up for them somehow. Ergo, I was unable to purchase two onions from the local market today. It would have brought a tear to my eye, but given my onion-less state, I couldn't even manage to do that.

Before moving on, I suppose I should discuss some of Saturday's festivities. At a teammate's apartment, about fifteen or twenty of us gathered to feast upon some traditional Danish holiday cuisine. Much of it is what one would commonly peg as typical Scandinavian fare: pickled herring, smoked salmon, another kind of pickled herring, spiced salami, the hollowed-out skulls of our defeated foes. A bit of a stretch, the last one is actually partially true. When proposing a toast, the Danish word "skål" (pronounced 'skoal') literally means 'skull.' This tradition harkens back to the days when viking forefathers would drink their mead out of, well, you guessed it. Sadly, modern Ikeas do not carry these models in their drinkware section.

Below, I'm trying to make sense of one of the many Danish conversations going on during the meal. We were, however, fortunate enough to have Canadian acting legend Mike Myers (green/yellow striped shirt) grace us with his presence.


The food was tasty. We used the fish, dark rye and wheat breads and various spreads to create the very Danish dish that is smørrebrød (I would offer a phonetic spelling, if I could figure out a way to type the sound that your throat is supposed to make - the character ø deserves its own post sometime down the road). Anyways, smørrebrød translates to "bread and butter" and that pretty much says it all. Using whatever spread you choose (I was adventurous and opted for butter), you coat your slice of bread then top it with one or more of the delicious meatsies or fishsies available. Below, you can see my half-eaten smørrebrød. The whitish fish in the top right corner is tradional pickled herring, which basically tastes like a sweet pickled pepper. The more reddish stuff towards the bottom center is a spiced herring that had a decidedly more fishy taste. I really liked that one.


The green things on my plate, cucumbers, were about the only veggie to be found at the table. There was no salad, nor even any real side dish. In place though, there was bacon. That was used to top a liver pate, the name of which I can't recall at this time. Pretty good also. All in all, a very enjoyable meal with good company.

The drink of choice was schapps, another holiday tradition. Although the good Dr. McGillicuddy was nowhere to be found, some pretty tasty homemade creations filled in for him quite nicely. It's very common to add one's favorite flavoring to a basic schnapps, thus customizing your holiday merriment. This can be done for as little as a day or two or prolonged over several years. Pictured below is a twenty-five hour vintage honey schnapps.


That's about it for my 2010 Danish Easter Report. Maybe by tomorrow, things will be back to normal so I can get on with my onion-buying ways. Until then, take care.

Oh, one more thing: Duke - Butler tonight? Seriously? Butler? Where the hell have I been the last ... wait, don't answer that.