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EVERYBODY’S DANISH Fred A. Nielsen
By fred | November 3, 2008
Let’s forget about our national election, forget our CE0 Cat stories – and for just a few minutes go back to those days so long ago in the early 1940′s when life just seemed so much more easier. What we would have for dinner when company invaded our home this weekend – THAT would a the main topic of conversation.
A time before TV’s, when conversations, playing cards, communicating with your friends and family was center stage. All so many, many years ago!
EVERYBODY’S DANISH – a family history
CHAPTER (Danish Cooking & Get-to-Gathers)
We had a pet store in the neighborhood and among the stuff sold in those days was horsemeat for animals. This was in the early 1940’s, and I was in my early teens. The clerk would sprinkle charcoal over the meat, supposedly so humans would not eat it.
One night we had Swiss steak for dinner. Swiss steak is meat, usually beef that is pounded with a hammer, to make it tender, cooked and served with good Danish gravy. It was so good, and after the meal Dad had a half grin on his face said to Grandma “Marie, that wasn’t beef, was it?”
Grandma had a very sheepish look on her face, and said “I’m sorry Andy, but the horse meat at the Pet Store looked so good, so I just washed the charcoal off. I remember it was so good in Denmark and I just had to fix it.” Mom and me got a sick look on our faces – poor Mom took off for the bathroom.
It seems that in Denmark in the 18 and early 1900’s horsemeat was just as common as beef and pork in the Danish butcher stores, and all through Europe for that matter. Needless to say it never hit our dining room table again!
During the war, everything was on stamps, a special stamp for coffee, butter, meat, and gas to name just a few. With the store and our small wholesale food business, it was more complicated than making a bank deposit. Stores were swapping stamps like crazy. If Dad had too many coffee stamps he would swap another store for something he was short of like butter or cheese stamps. In the wholesale business not only was the price of cheese negotiated but the number of stamps. If you had something in really short supply, you could make all kinds of deals.
One day Dad had made a deal and got four of the most beautiful fillet mignon steaks you ever saw. During the war this was an unheard of treat for the family. He proudly brought them home late in the afternoon, and said “Grandma Marie, do you know how to fix them?”
“Sure Andy, I’ll fix them good!” she said.
Dad came down and told Mom in the store what he brought home for dinner. We couldn’t wait to close the store for our late supper. We are all seated around the table and Grandma brings in this big pot. “What’s that” Dad said.
“Beautiful steak” Grandmas said, as she opened the dish. Dad’s beautiful fillet mignon steaks had been pounded flat, cooked in the oven for several hours, and served with gravy. Certainly a very tasty meal, but not what my former Danish cowboy father, and the rest of us were looking forward to.
I’ll never forget the look on Dad’s face. He finally said with a voice of defeat “It’s my fault Grandma, I thought you knew how to make steaks the American way.”
There were no steaks on the Bar-B-Q in Denmark, all the beef was usually very tough and the only way to tenderize it was to pound the hell out of it. Swiss steak style, stew, or maybe a roast, but that was all Grandma Marie knew about steaks.
Until I was in my teens I can never remember going to a restaurant, never, this is one problem with the Scandinavian ladies – they are just great cooks. Why the heck should a guy take his wife out and pay for food that was not half as good as what she cooked at home. Scandinavian’s, especially Norwegians and Danes were poor restaurant patrons. You also have the thrift aspect. A classy expensive restaurant was just a waste of money.
I do remember going to the Danish Hall across the street for various events that included roast pork dinners, or Danish sausage and meatballs. Besides the meat there was always the traditional Danish red cabbage, boiled or mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpernickel, never a green salad. There were a lot of different Danish organizations, the Danish Brotherhood, Danish Sisterhood, Dania Lodge, Danish Singing Society, Dad and Mom belonged to them all. Dad was one of five ‘hall committee’ members. These guys oversaw the manager of the hall, checked that rents were paid and so forth. There was certainly no lack of social life, with all the various Danish organizations, family, and friends homes to visit on weekends. You never visited without eating just a bit.
I’ll give you an example, because no matter if the party was at our house or at a member of the family, Mom’s brothers, Dad’s Sister Olga or at another of their friends – it always worked out about the same. The Pallisgaards and the Knudsens were probably Andy’s closest friends. Einer Knudsens was the most fun, because they owned a big dairy in the valley with over three hundred head of cows, and their home was right on the farm, visiting them was a ton of fun.
Everybody would usually get there a little after noon especially if it was at Einer Knudsens dairy/home. Of course you had to be starved – at least the hostess thought you were. Platters of all kinds of open faced Danish Sandwiches, cheese, ham, roast beef, pate’, eggs, herring, you name it! Salads, maybe a hot soup on a cold day, cake and coffee, would end lunch. Now the ‘boys’, as the ladies called their husbands, were washing all this down with a few shots of Canadian Club or VO Whiskey, Alborg Akavit, and a few dozen bottles of beer.
The ‘boys’ stayed at the dinning room table after the girls cleared all the food off. Out would come the cards and a game of poker or pinochle would start. Of course, they were still thirsty so the beer would keep flowing. After about two hours, say 3:30 P. M. in the afternoon the girls would figure their men couldn’t make it to dinner so they would bring in afternoon ‘coffee.’ Afternoon coffee to the Danes is not just coffee. Included is coffeecake with plates of cookies, and cake, with a little Brandy in the coffee to just to ‘sweeten it’ a bit. That over, back to the kitchen the girls would go, and the card game would proceed as the girls figured the ‘boys’ could hold out for a few hours longer.
At about six, the girls would be really nervous, the ‘boys’ really had to be hungry! The boys would have to move aside so the girls could get the table ready for dinner. We are talking major food here! No Danish lady would consider cooking less than twice as much food as her guests could eat it just wasn’t done.
Huge pork or beef roasts, goose, stacks of chicken, Danish sausage, meatballs. Huge bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, cooked vegetables, a little ‘cold table’ herring and cheese to start things off. I don’t remember salads – they didn’t seem to go into raw green lettuce salads like we do now days, guess they figured greens were for animals, Danes and other humans ate real cooked food. For desert after dinner there was usually something lighter like custard, or a rice pudding. If you found a nut in your pudding you got a prize. It’s funny that only the kids seemed to get the nuts and the prizes.
There would be at least five glasses in front of each adult. A beer glass, a shot glass, a tall Alborg Akravit shot glass, a wineglass, and a brandy snifter, by the end of dinner all were used, most more than once, the boys used their glasses time and time again.
Again the ‘boys’ had to make room for the girls to clear the table. While the girls were washing up the boys got back to the cards and a couple hours after dinner it was getting time to go. These ‘visits’ usually were on a Sunday and all the boys had to put in a full workday the next day. Here the hostess got real worried, the pangs of hunger had to be returning, so just before you went home out came the pumpernickel bread, cheese, Pate’, ham, roast beef, just a little something to get you home. A few platters of Danish coffeecake, cookies were ‘again’ included. Coffee with a bit of Cognac would top it off to make sure you would not be hungry on the way home.
I think back on these Sunday visits and wonder– how in the hell did they do it? The men never left the dinning room table except to go to the bathroom, or move a little while the girls cleaned off the table. Drinking all day, and into the night, the mildest beverage outside of a few cups of coffee was beer. The only thing I can think of is that they never drank on an empty stomach. Most of us crazy Americans will go to a cocktail party before dinner, and have nothing but a dip or a few chips to eat and pour drink after drink of raw alcohol into our empty stomachs. I don’t remember my Dad being drunk, happy as hell yes, —drunk no. He always drove home.
And the ‘girls,’ you would think they would be put out about being in the kitchen all day. Not true! Everyone seemed to have large kitchens. The girls would be standing around or sitting at the kitchen table laughing, telling stories, all working together for whatever came next. Every so often checking to see what trouble us kids were getting into. All were close friends and enjoyed being together fixing for their men. I sincerely doubt if the girls of today would put up with this for very long–attitudes and life was different then.
The American Scandinavians may have over done it on the food they provided for their guests. To tell you the truth, I really believe that it had to do with the fact that most of them came from very poor to middle class families in Denmark. They came to America and by hard work and sweat they all achieved some degree of success. To them, it was a matter of pride to be able to provide in abundance when family or friends visited. Anyway, if the guests didn’t finish it up, we certainly did the next day or so.
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