D is for Denmark

D is for Denmark

Hello, Sunday and hello, D-Day. Yes, it’s time again to crack out both the map and the kitchen utensils, and head off to a new culinary destination. With a brief sigh of relief, I saw that a mere four countries on this planet start with the letter D: Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica and the Dominican Republic. While I am intrigued about the cuisines of the latter three, I’m trying – as far as luxury will allow – to go for places with which I have some connection (however tenuous) and that means: God morgen Danmark!

According to various statistics, Denmark has it good. For years, it was named the happiest country in the world (this year, it was controversially overtaken by its Scandi neighbour, Norway). It’s home to one of the world’s best restaurants, noma; they are entitled to INSANE employment benefits, and their unis are free. FREE! Not only that, but it appears to me that absolutely all of them are drop dead gorgeous. Seriously, if you suffer from any shred of self-confidence issues, it might be wise to avoid Denmark, or at least walk around with your eyes closed whenever the Danes are out and about, which is all the blimmin’ time. A few years ago, my – for the record, downright brilliant – parents and I headed to Copenhagen to celebrate my birthday. Having met in the city’s main station, we started the longer-than-anticipated pilgrimage to our accommodation, which took us right across the city and out the other side. As a family, we are unbending and uncompromising walkers, and so no matter the length of the prospective journey, we will categorically NOT step foot in a taxi. At a push, we’ll jump on an underground, but a jolly good stroll (or as the case may be, a 10-mile trek) is more our style. So, there we were, dragging ourselves and our luggage through Copenhagen, red-faced and sweating in clothes we’d all been in for hours on end, and it did not take long to dawn on us that, boy, are these Danes good-looking. And tall. And effortlessly stylish. Oh. Great.

So, the question is: what the Dickens are these guys doing – and eating – to get that way? First and foremost, there’s hygge. Unless you’ve lived the life of a hermit the last year or so, you’ll have heard of hygge. You might not be able to pronounce it, let alone understand it, but you know it’s there, lurking on every book shop shelf, trying to entice you with its seductive promise of a better life. The concept of hygge is difficult to define: it’s kind of an inherent cosiness and warmth that permeates every aspect of life. As far as I can tell, the UK publishing industry equates this feeling with patterned woolly socks and logs, and a devil-may-care attitude towards the amount of hot chocolate you consume. In reality, hygge is so much more. Upon asking my Danish teacher to elucidate a little on the topic, she struggled to actually define it, resorting instead to simply listing things that can be hyggelig (the adjectival form of the noun hygge): parties, clothes, rooms, buildings, household objects, toothbrushes, dog collars, the dust at the bottom of a cereal box…(caveat: some of those may be ever so slightly exaggerated) – in a nutshell, everything. And apparently, that genuinely has a lot to do with the Danes’ level of happiness and well-being. But it’s something that cannot really be imitated, no matter what the 2016 bestseller list tells you. To reach true hygge, you just have to be Danish.

But brush off that disappointment, friends, for there is food! Unlike hygge, Danish food – det danske køkken to the natives -is something we can all enjoy, down to the last artery-clogging crumb. Although not one of Europe’s most celebrated, Danish cuisine boasts some glorious creations: flæskesteg (roast pork with crackling), boller i karry (pork meatballs in curry sauce), frikadeller (pork or veal meatballs) and the absolutely blow-your-mind delicious stegt flæsk med persillesovs. This triumph of a meal consists of slices of fried pork served with potatoes and béchamel sauce with parsley. Voted the national dish in 2014, a plate of this stuff will make you feel two things: 1. “GODDAMN, I’m moving to Denmark IMMEDIATELY so I can shovel this in my face every damn day” and 2. “I wonder what I could have done with that year I’ve just knocked off my life?”. My mum wisely ordered it in one restaurant we visited and we were sold; hook, line and béchamel-coated sinker. It is allllll about Denmark.

Despite the abundance of excellent savoury options available, my sweet tooth (or rather, entire mouth of sweet teeth) could not let D pass me by without having a bash at something from the famous arsenal of Danish baked goods. Danish pastries are known all over the world, and with good reason. However, don’t go ordering a Danish pastry in Denmark, as the Danes do not claim these treasures for themselves (maybe not so smart after all, you crazy Danes): instead, they’re referred to as Wienerbrød, or Viennese bread. The concept of what we know as Danish pastry was originally introduced into Denmark by Austrian bakers back in, errrrr, yore, and since then has taken on a life of its own in the country’s baking culture. As in much Northern European baking, especially Scandinavian baking, recipes are heavy on the spice: cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and black pepper are all bound to be knocking around in a recipe somewhere, a tradition which dates back to the Middle Ages, when Europeans went absolutely ga-ga for the stuff. It was like the medieval version of the current trend for quinoa, kale, chia and coconut oil, expect infinitely less annoying.

And what is the epitome of Wienerbrød? Well, kanelsnegle of course! Let me break it down for you: kanel is the Danish word for cinnamon, and snegle means snails. Mercifully, kanelsnegle is not some demented variation of French-style snails (delicious, by the way) but rather what we’d call cinnamon swirls. Just a little note on the pronunciation of the word itself: it is not, as you might justifiably expect, pronounced “kan-ell-sneg-le” or “kan-ell-sneg-ul”. No. It’s more like “kan-err-snei”. OF COURSE IT BLOODY IS! Unfortunately for learners of Danish like myself, this utterly bananas pronunciation is a rather common trait of the language (the word chokoladekage? “sho-koh-lille-kay”, obviously), which I’m starting to believe is a tactic to put foreigners off moving there and stealing all the hygge.

This week, I decided to really challenge myself and work from a recipe written in Danish. God only knows what would have happened if a Danish person had just talked me through the recipe - I imagine my kitchen would probably have been on fire at some point or another – but reading it isn’t too tricky at all. The recipe I used was not a typical Danish pastry Brits have come to know and love using puff pastry, but rather a sweet bread dough rammed with a straight-up criminal amount of butter, sugar and cinnamon. Although my love of cooking started with baking, I’m not a bread baker at all. Any mention of yeast in a recipe and I’m out; to me, baking with yeast is too risky and far too unpredictable – the great mystery of how it works is enough to send me running for the hills. BUT, this being a challenge and all, I decided to give it a whirl. The recipe itself is simple enough, although the sheer amount of butter, sugar, eggs and milk is a little daunting, but I have to say, I think I need more practice. The dough was definitely soft and squishy and gorgeously aromatic, and the filling sweet and unctuous, but getting the right filling-to-dough ratio is a real gamble. Too little filling and your little snails will be too doughy and dry; too much and they will be swimming in a vat of butter as it oozes out during the baking process, meaning they don’t bake properly. Generally, I’m a ‘the more butter, the better’ kind of person, but in this case, it is definitely detrimental to the final result. For a first attempt, my snails weren’t too terrible. They certainly taste pretty great, as you would expect from the combo of ingredients, but the execution needs a little work. The whole process from start to finish also requires a certain time commitment, which perhaps I was just a bit too nonchalant about, whipping them up without too much care and attention late on a Saturday afternoon. In any case, there is no doubt that Danish food – especially Danish baking – is a good time all round. It’s generous and warm, and fills you with a sense of glowy, tra-la-la, snuggly goodness…also known, perhaps, as hygge.

C is for Cambodia

C is for Cambodia

Hey readers (read: Hi mum)! In contrast to last week, there was really only one choice for ‘C’. I double-checked the list of countries to make sure I remembered all the ones in question this week (see last week for my embarrassing memory failure), but I had more or less already decided on where my culinary curiosity was going to take me. Nevertheless, there was a moment’s flirtation with Colombia, the reason being my eternal quest to make two Colombian friends think I’m a lot cooler than I am. Funnily enough, I met them in Cambodia and ever since, I have been following their awe-inspiring adventures across the globe with equal of measures of glee (“hurrah, look at all the fun they’re having”), envy (“why isn’t my life like that?”) and confusion (“why on earth are these cool cats friends with me?!”). Even if you don’t speak Spanish, I urge you to check out their YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbjJg8YQyUeyMfl1d0rBqCQ) and marvel at how spectacular it is, and how brilliant the ‘Colomviajeros’ are.

And so to Cambodia. I have to be careful here, as I have a strong tendency to get schmaltzy when I start talking about the Kingdom of Wonder. Not just schmaltzy, but long-winded too, and believe me, schmaltz and wind is not a winning combination. Just ask the legions of glazed and dazed people trailing in my wake. For your own sanity, I will say only this: my love for Cambodia is the most instantaneous I have ever experienced. It has well and truly entrenched itself in my heart, and it is with me, always. Alright, I’m done, I promise.

Before going there myself, I was shockingly unaware of the history of this South-East Asian beauty: from the glorious days of the Kingdom of Angkor to the ravages of its terrifyingly recent history, during the time of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia seems to have experienced the full spectrum of everything a nation can experience, and it would be foolish of me to even attempt to break it down into a few digestible morsels. Emerging from the lowest of low points, however, this is a country which feels like it is tentatively making its way towards something special. Again, I don’t wish to delve too deeply into it here, but given half the chance I will gladly witter on at you for hours on end about it – an offer I’m sure you can barely stand to refuse.

“Good God (or perhaps more appropriately, Good Buddha) woman, get the heck on with it!” – yes, I can hear you, sorry. OK, so when you let your mind wander eastwards…no, further, you’ve just hit the ‘Stans…no no, that’s China…still China…yep, stiiilllll China…SOUTH, NOW, SOUTH…well done, you made it – what do you think of? Face-meltingly hot curries in Thailand, perhaps? The steam from fragrant and herbaceous Vietnamese pho wafting its way up your – by local standards – massive honker (note: South East Asians are not shy about telling big, lumbering tourists that they have really huge noses – a real boost for the self-confidence, I can tell you)? If you went backpacking around South East Asia when you were about 19, all you can probably remember is drinking too much 50c-per-glass beer and making wise investments in elephant-patterned hareem pants. Maybe you think of all of these things, or none of them, but chances are Khmer (the adjective used to describe basically anything Cambodian, including the language) cuisine isn’t the first thing that springs to mind.

Khmer cuisine certainly shares many characteristics with its neighbours, but it definitely has its own vibe going on. It’s a little less in-your-face than Thai and Vietnamese food – something which, in my eyes, is also true of the people of Bodge (as Cambodia is affectionately known to, well, me) – but you can certainly jazz it up with the simple addition of a handful of fresh chili or Kampot black pepper. Or prahok. Ahhhhhh prahok, what is there to say? Well, apparently it is “Cambodian cheese”. Except for the fact that it is categorically not that. Prahok doesn’t even get a whiff of a cow field during its production. Instead, its subjected to a 6-month stint in a wooden barrel, just soaking up all the aromas you can imagine would result in 6 months trapped in a sweltering and confined space. Oh and by the way, it’s made of fish. Fermented fish. Just unceremoniously chopped up and slopped in a barrel and left there to mature in all its stinking glory. But you know what, it isn’t half bad! Mix it up with some chili, lemongrass, lime juice and BAM, the perfect dip – weirdly – for grilled beef. Like a totally bonkers surf-and-turf.

Fish in general is ubiquitous in Bodge, thanks to the presence of the vast Tonle Sap lake that sits slap-bang in the middle of the country. I once read that Cambodians get 70% of their protein from fish – given their propensity to get prahok involved at any opportunity, I can well believe it. The quasi national dish of fish curry (in Khmer, amok trey) is found in any tourist gaff worth its salt, and if you venture off to almost any local market, you’re sure to be greeted by rows of little fishies on the grill, googly eyes and all. Fish also manages to sneak its way into fruit-based snacks (you’re never safe!), primarily in the form of kapi, a rather - *ahem* - aromatic dipping sauce made with chilies, sugar, salt and a very generous dash of shrimp paste. I mean, I like the stuff, but I’d advise trying a wee dab first before barrelling pots of it down your hole.

There are so many wonderful dishes to discover in traditional Khmer cuisine, including the breakfast of champions, bai sach chrouk, literally translated as ‘rice meat pig’. For any language boffins out there, this description of pork is how most meat is described in Khmer – the word ‘meat’ followed by the name of the animal. To my novice ears, the tendency towards compound nouns seems to be pretty common in Khmer, something which it shares with my beloved German, my absolute favourite word being the one for polar bear: literally, ‘honey tiger frozen water’. But back to the food. Rice, people. It’s all about the rice. And not just any rice – Cambodian rice. No other rice will do. Rice is so completely vital to Khmer cuisine that the phrase for ‘Let’s eat’ – nyam bai – literally just means ‘Eat rice’. The phrase cli-en bai (that is a very liberal take on the English spelling, there), meaning ‘I’m hungry’, translates as ‘hungry for rice’. So there’s no getting away from it. But why would you want to? It’s tasty, filling and local – boom! And there is no other rice-based dish that brings me more nostalgic joy than bobor, or rice porridge.

I can’t say that I ate too much bobor when I was living in Bodge, but it will forever make me smile as it reminds me of a dear friend – and the best tour guide in Cambodia – Mr Yut (seriously, if you ever go to Cambodia, check out the awesome Ayana Journeys - http://ayanajourneys.com/ - and get yourself on one their tours; Yut is one of the company founders). Even if he ate a full Christmas dinner all to himself, I’m almost 100% sure Yut would always have room for a steaming bowl of bobor. On several occasions, after eating with him and his all-round-gem-of-a-girlfriend, Sarah, I would hop on my rust bucket of a bike to head home, only to hear the words “Sarah, shall we go for bobor on the way back?” floating through the evening air as they pulled on their moped helmets. But I totally get it. Bobor is kind of like a rice soup, comforting and light, and full of ginger, lemongrass, garlic and flaky white fish. It’s food for the soul, I reckon. The version I made at home was packed to the brim with ginger – to the point where my mouth was ever so slightly on fire – and immediately catapulted me back to the Bodia (although I was decidedly less sweaty in my cold German kitchen than on the streets of Siem Reap). Bobor is wonderful. Rice is wonderful. And Cambodia, of course, is wonderful, too.

B is for Burkina Faso

So, it’s only week two of this challenge and already I’m finding it difficult to choose from the vast array of dishes that are being served up to me during my internet research. When it came to checking countries that start with ‘B’, I was surprised and not unreasonably ashamed of how few countries I remembered that start with ‘B’, of which there are 17. 17 is a sizeable pile of places, that much I hope we can agree on. However, there is no excuse for the fact that I more or less got stuck at Belgium. I even forgot some absolute whoppers, including – embarrassingly - Brazil (shhh, don’t tell anyone).

BUT there is a good reason my scatterbrain only just made it across the Channel to, in my eyes, one of the most undeservedly overlooked countries this side of Poland: somehow, I ended up living there for a year or so…which was a surprise, even to me. Ever since, I have harboured an all-consuming love for all that is Belgian. Food-wise, this tiny wee country is punching way above its weight: sensational waffles, exemplary chocolate, supreme beers, proper hearty stews, EVERYTHING ‘speculoos’ flavoured (think caramelly, cinnamon-y gastronomical glory) and the crowning glory, ‘frietjes’ (Belgian fries) with Joppiesaus. Guys, do yourselves a favour and get yourselves some Joppie. And while you’re at it, order me some too!

Despite this being the obvious choice for the ‘B’ week, lo and behold, I took a quick hop, skip and airplane ride over to Africa; more specifically, to the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso. As with many African countries, it’s been through the mill in the past, and continues to be put through it today - please don’t take this as me being flippant with regards to the country’s issues. However, this isn’t the time or place for an in-depth look into its struggles with colonisation, development and political turmoil. For that, I suggest you venture off and consult a source of actual authority. Not me.

So let’s get down to the food. I have to say, I was expecting there to be a certain flair de la cuisine française permeating Burkinabe (yep, that’s a new one for me too) cuisine. Obviously I wasn’t anticipating everything being cooked in great swathes of butter and lashings of cream, but a nod to the colonial past is something I’ve seen in the dishes of other formerly colonised nations. However, BF – I can say that ‘cos we’re friends now – seems to have eschewed any form of French frou-frou with a very firm hand. No doubt that has a lot to do with availability of both ingredients and the moola for them, but I also enjoy the thought of them being like ‘Nahhhh thanks, we’ll sort our own food out – we don’t need your baguettes or nothin!’.

Burkinabe cuisine is pretty similar to those in a lot of other West African nations: sorghum is big news, as are millet, rice, potatoes, beans and a whole host of veggies. But friends, the most exciting news is peanuts. Yes yes, peanuts are one of the headline acts in West African cuisine and I, dear reader, am a big fan. I’m not exaggerating when I say I eat peanut butter every day, in some manifestation or another. Normally, it’s just by the spoonful while I sit and contemplate how many cats I can feasibly fit in my flat. But in the spirit of this project, I decided to do away with the norm and set my sights on the wonderfully vague-sounding ‘West African peanut stew’, roping in a trusty gal pal to help me hoover up the results.

Well, they certainly weren’t messing around on the peanut front. I ended up chucking in a solid cup of PB into a pan, along with a big blob of tomato puree, stock and healthy amounts of fresh ginger and garlic. Chilli, of course, also made an appearance in the form of harissa paste (technically North African but we’ll gloss over that for now). Then it seemed to be a case of ‘throw in whatever the heck is kicking around in your veg box and looks like it’s about to start turning unattractive shades of yellow’. I opted for a big, beautiful Savoy cabbage and the final scrapings of a box of frozen spinach (which we all have in our freezers, come on). Oh boy, what a smashing result! Turns out that tomato and peanut are the perfect bedfellows, and the copious amounts of ginger and garlic packed a very welcome punch to the whole shebang. I’d even put myself out there and say that I could have gone for a bit more ginger – wild, I know – but as it stands, this dish was a hit. Good work, BF!

Just a word on why I plumped for Burkina Faso. Some years ago, during an intense round of ‘Who can name the most African countries and capitals?’ (normal normal normal), some friends and I came upon the frankly unparalleled Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Roll that name around your mouth for a while; consider how wonderfully far-away and unknown it sounds; how utterly enjoyable the perfect sequence of vowels and consonants is. Since that day, I’ve never forgotten it and I’m unlikely ever to do so. Say it with me folks: Ouagadougou. See what I mean?

This peanut party post is dedicated to my fellow peanut butter enthusiast, Shelley Pascual, freelance journalist and adventurer extraordinaire. Check out her super swish blog at https://shelleypascual.wordpress.com/

Hi friends. Welcome to this, my delicious vanity project that will lead me up to the big 3-0 at the end of August this year. My sincerest apologies for dragging you along for the ride.

In recent years, it seems to have become a bit of a thing to have some kind of goal in sight for your 30^th birthday. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe 30 is the age at which we feel we should have more or less sorted ourselves out – job, house, watching documentaries instead of trashy reality TV, gym membership you actually use etc. Maybe it’s a sense of impending doom – if I don’t do it before I’m 30, my arthritic joints and general distaste for everything that is modern will surely stop me from ever doing it (whatever ‘it’ is). As usual, the Germans have a spectacularly accurate term for that very particular feeling: Torschlusspanik. Literally, panic that the gates are closing. Good old German, hitting the nail ever so precisely on the linguistic head. Again.

With that in mind, and spurred on by valiant endeavours of friends and family in recent years, I thought I’d give it a crack myself. But what to do? Sport seems a popular theme - running painfully long distances, hiking longer than is really necessary, doing sit-ups until your stomach is almost a built-in bullet proof vest– but after a careful 5 seconds of deliberation, I decided against it. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s flippin’ amazing when people achieve ANYTHING sports-related, but I know I’d tap out pretty early. For me, sports are a means to an end – the end being All. The. Food. And so it was that I decided to do something based on food. Bet you’re surprised at that, eh?

I’m loathe to bore you with the details of how I came up with this master plan, so I’ll give you the highlights:

-       -  26 weeks between the first week in March and the week of my birthday (hence the name ‘March to Thirty’)

-        - 26 letters in the alphabet (take that fun fact to your next pub quiz – bonus points for you!)

-        - Lots of countries in the world that start with those 26 letters!

So, for the next 26 weeks (sorrysorrysorry!) I’ll be going through the alphabet and cooking a dish from one of the countries starting with whichever letter I’m on. I’ll try and give at least a hint of history on each dish, and a little verdict on how delicious/revolting it was. That’s it! Join me at your peril. Oh, and if you want any of the recipes, just shout and I’ll gladly send ‘em over.

A is for Australia

Shunk off, you daggy bogan! Put some shrimp on the barbie, you flamin’ galah! In my mind, this is how all Australians talk. Every last one of them. ‘Neighbours’ certainly has a lot to answer for.

I’ve never been to Australia, but of all the ‘A’ countries, it seemed to be the most pertinent choice, given that I have a bunch of wonderful relatives (or “rellies”, to the Aussies) and friends out there. Any photos of Oz that pop up on the internet never cease to amaze me/make me die a little inside because I’m not there myself, and I do hope to make it there one day. Oz-based friends and fam, take that as your first warning.

Food-wise, ‘Straya is traditionally -at least in British minds - all about the barbie. Images of beautifully tanned and healthy folk firing one up on the beach on Christmas Day are familiar to all Brits. “Oh no no, a hot Christmas? It’s just not right”, we all say. “I’d much rather be revelling in the grey and drizzly splendour of Blighty, thank you very much.”, says absolutely no-one. But for my personal challenge, a barbecue is a little inconvenient, given that it is March in Northern Germany (read: wet and cold).

Australia has some absolutely stonking national foods - pavlova, lamingtons, Anzac biscuits, meat pies, grilled kangaroo – but for my first dish of this challenge, I plumped for damper. Don’t fret, I also hadn’t the first clue what it was until Wiki filled me in. Damper, dear friends, is a traditional Australian soda bread, which was historically prepared by merry bands of travellers across the country. The ingredients are basic – flour, water and a splash of milk, if you’re feeling fancy – and seems to have been used more as a vehicle for anything else that was around, such as dried meat or golden syrup. Cooked in the ashes of a camp fire, damper is a dish for proper wanderers and nomads. The idea of this greatly appealed to me, but I wasn’t so enthralled by the prospect of a baked lump of flour and water. Maybe if I wanted to create some sort of homemade doorstop or take out a few pigeons on my way to work, but I quite like eating, so decided to jazz it up a touch.

 The result? A sweet potato and chive damper. It is delightfully simple, doable for even the most gravely untalented in the kitchen. It is essentially a giant scone, pepped up by a cup of mashed sweet potatoes, chives, parsley and chilli flakes. I munched on a slab for lunch with a dippy egg, salted butter and fresh tomatoes, and was truly happy with the warm, sweet and salty stodge. My kitchen in Braun Town sure as heck ain’t the Outback, but the damper certainly tasted as good as I’m sure it did back then smothered in syrup.

There we have it. It’s started! Feel free to join me for ‘B’ next week, when I’ll either be popping across the border to Belgium or zipping over to Burkina Faso. I know, the excitement is almost too much to bear!