A Scandinavian Christmas

While finals are slowly drawing closer, there is always time for a party. This past weekend I was able to experience a real Danish Christmas lunch/dinner with my kitchen mates. In Danish, this event is known as Julefrokost. I had such a great time. It was quite exciting to try new foods as well as the traditional beverage known as snaps. This alcoholic drink is normally served at both Christmas and Easter. In all honesty, it tastes pretty disgusting, yet since it's tradition, it is always served and normally is completely consumed by the end of the evening.

Christmas lunch is normally a cold meal consisting of slices of rye bread (called rugbrød) with various "toppings" added to the bread. At our meal, these "toppings" consisted of breaded fish fillets, pickled herring, hard boiled eggs, bacon, liver paste with browned mushrooms, and various mustard and curry sauces.

Some of the food at lunch. Clara (the girl in the picture) was the exchange student from last year and came back for a visit

Dinner is a hot meal, often with a roast of some sort (normally pork), meatballs (also made from pork), potatoes, and gravy.

Some of my kitchen mates working on dinner

The dinner selection

For dessert, we had the traditional rice pudding. Of course, at this point everyone was completely stuffed with food (the whole day was literally just eating and drinking), yet we still ate it in search of the whole almond. As part of tradition, in the rice pudding, there is a single whole almond, and whoever finds it gets and extra gift for christmas (in our case, it was a prize).

The rice pudding

 Of course, in between meals there was time to hang out with everyone and more drinking. Here are some pictures of some of the fun we had.

Trying to use a camera as a phone

A look at the other table

Surprise picture!!! 

Rolf tried to steal the Christmas tree 

A great time

This was a great day for me, and it was even better that I spent it with my kitchen mates. Probably one of the best highlights that I've experienced while I've been here.

~Alison