EATING OUT – something rotten in Denmark?

If you like hay, pine needles and lichen, also known as a plant like organism, alga and fungus and have a huge budget for eating – like real huge, you should make a reservation at the best restaurant in the world – if you can find an available table within the next many months or years? Dinner for two with a bottle of wine will set you back approximately $711, depending on how tight you are with tips. But not to worry, in this country, tips (gratuity of 15%) are included in the prices you see on the menu. Of course if you like hay, pine needles and plant like organisms, $711 is a barging – but something else is rotten in Denmark.

The restaurant NOMA in Copenhagen has yet again been voted the best restaurant in the world; this is the third consecutive year, so they must be doing something right. Looking at their Web-site, the elegance is there and their philosophy concerning the food they create is fascinating. Chef Rene Redzepi is finding a multitude of new and old sources of foods and all of it from the Nordic countries (NOMA is a combination of the two Danish words "nordisk" (Nordic) and "mad" (food)) - so there. The preparation and presentation is also rather unique. If you feel like inviting me to NOMA (you pay for me, of course) I’m often in Denmark; so how about making those reservations, okay? Let me know what year; I’ll even bring my own appetite.

We have an eatery, The French Laundry, in nearby Yountville (Northern California) and they are approximately 43rd on the list of the world’s best restaurants. As far as I understand, they are supposedly fully booked two years in advance, which effectively eliminates that spur-of-the-moment eating-out thing, when you don’t feel like cooking, as in: “Hey, sweetheart, how about going out and eat – in about 24 months – if we can get a table – and if we are still together, huh?”

The thing about Copenhagen is that over the last many years, it has actually also turned rather exciting in the culinary department. Many new restaurants pop up with fascinating and exciting concepts and menus. But it has not always been like that – actually far from, and this is where something is getting rotten in Denmark.

For some, eating is just something we do and must do to survive. Our two boys used to just open the refrigerator door and hope something edible would fall into their open mouths – covering lunch or dinner or whatever hunger-need needed to be covered; true story. As they have gotten older, food in all its fantastic varieties are now more so in focus. On our trip to Denmark and Sweden this summer, our youngest son took more pictures of food items than of anything else - seriously.

In Denmark years back, we would eat because we had to, and restaurants for the most part had basic menus featuring open faced sandwiches, meat-balls and lots of pork dishes. But that has changed; eating home and eating out has become rather exciting; but at an unfortunate cost.

 

As I grew up in Copenhagen, you would find a vast quantity of “polsevogne”, which directly translated means “hotdog cars” (See fascinating picture above). Here you could get a quick meal, consisting of (you are too fast for me) hotdogs, either a plain hotdog, with ketchup, mustard and a small rectangular roll; 

or a delicious hotdog, somewhat American style, but with huge Danish influence. I have eaten thousands of those things through the years, as expertly demonstrated below.

After every arrival into Copenhagen International Airport (or CIA, huh?) and driving somewhere, I stop (religiously) by the first “polsevogn” I see. I get a red and boiled hotdog with raw onions, mustard, ketchup as well as remolade (type of tartar sauce) and a soda. And I have about three hotdogs like that as one meal – not feeling any guilt what-so-ever. But those days are nearly gone, as those “polsevogne” have become an endangered species; not that many around anymore.

The Danes have become more sophisticated concerning what they eat, as well as fast-food establishments Burger King, McDonalds and the like have popped up all over the place – squeezing those polsevogne out; to me that is a national shame as I consider eating red polser a Danish birth-right, as it should be – right there next to breast-feeding.

The polsevogne hotdogs are red, colored red and the funny story is, that many years ago, the “food-ministry” or something like that, decided that the color used to make our hotdogs so festive red, had way too many terrible life-ending chemicals in them; even the research rats refused to eat any of them – they seriously went on strike. So in the government’s wisdom, the color was banned from all hotdogs and they now appeared in that nasty beige-like gut color (which is actually the part that holds a hotdog together, if we like it or not – and YUK on that)…

But the ban did not go over well with the natives. Massive arguments, protests and threats flew around and in the end, the pro-red-polse-people of Denmark won and the red coloring came back – hopefully in a less deadly version. The rats returned, doing the testing and as far as I know, most of them survive.

But will the endangered Danish polsevogne survive? I do hope so, as Denmark would not be Denmark without The Little Mermaid (who is now over 100 years old), the Royal Family, Lego, Tivoli, Danish pastry and polsevogne. My Mother is 93 and will not live forever; a fact I do realize. But Denmark without my three hotdogs with raw onions, ketchup, mustard, remolade and a soda, no matter how many NOMA’s pop up, pine needles and fungi, would not be the same Denmark I love so much – and to me, that is a true national crisis.  

  

So do me a favor when you visit Denmark, please support the grand polse-tradition by frequenting any and all polsevogne you see. And when you mention my name to any of the polsevogn-men and women serving you, they’ll no doubt say: “It’s such a pity Peter lives in America; business has never been the same without him here – we really miss him…” (True story).

They all had a least one hotdog - yes, I asked them all.