I’m all for trying the new food in different cultures, but a lot of times that food isn’t something you particularly like. While I love the food here in Denmark mostly, there is still a band of foods that I could certainly live without.
1. First things first. Licorice is literally the defining flavor of Denmark. Dane’s just love their freakin’ licorice. I’m not talking about twizzlers here, I’m talking about that black crappy tasting stuff. There are two ways to have licorice here, 1. Bitter and salty or 2. Sweetened. You can buy all types of licorice, gum, sweets, cough drops. They even stick it into stuff the SHOULDN’T have licorice in it… like chocolate covered licorice, or the clear elder flower candy I had the other day. Sneaky Danes. They love it so much that they simply have to hide it in all of the other decently tasting things. Here they have a shot called Fisk (which means fish in Danish)… it tasts like licorice and mouthwash. In fact, the American’s here started calling it “the mouthwash shot” because we didn’t know what it was for a while. While I still hate licorice, the shot has grown on me, and nothing can beat the minty freshness of your breath after you take it, Not even brushing your teeth!
2. Pork, oh how I loathe you. Except for bacon, you can rarely catching me eat pork or ham or pig or whatever EVER. Demark is a country of 5 million people, and 13 million pigs. Each person typically consumes 60kg or 132 pounds of pork a year. The runner-up is beef, where they only consume 30kg, or 66 pounds a year. Simply, Danes love their pig. I tried to be understanding and ate pig when my host family served it (which is usually around 3-4 nights a week if you don’t count the bacon in our meals almost every night). However, I just couldn’t keep the poker face anymore after about 2 months of pig, pig, and more pig. It’s not that the dishes aren’t tasty, it’s just that pork/ham is not my thing. Thankfully they try to make me salads and soup now… and of course bacon is always ready to be dropped into it if it needs a little hamin-up.
3. Thankfully, most of my stay I have not had to run into Leverpostej again. Leverpostej is liver paste. YUM… not. I did try this and I have to admit it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I wouldn’t choose it again, but it was nice to try. Every time I see I automatically avoid it, but if I wasn’t such a picky eater I think that most people would actually like it.
4. Along with pork, Danes love boiled potatoes. Yes, just boiled. The typical sauce they put on the potatoes is what we American’s call the “dark brown sauce stuff”. It’s closest to gravy, but is not exactly gravy. I always wait to see if it will get tastier, but it is frequently somewhat flavorful, not as much so as gravy. That is ok considering that one douses their potatoes in a pool of it, so you get a nice mix of both potatoes and sauce. Though one of the things I like here in Denmark, it is still somewhat of a confusing and interesting taste.
Stay tuned for what I can’t live without! I’m actually going to Czech tomorrow so don’t expect oo many posts about Denmark. Instead, let’s hope I am responsible enough to keep you updated about my upcoming 2 week break!
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