Huh?
A resolution I made this year is to write a short summary of each month, for posterity, and for sharing with friends and family. You may be thinking, huh, why? Well, I have a few reasons:
- I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch with people overseas, and given that I now live in Denmark, this could be a nice way of letting you know what’s going on; and
- I think it will be a nice exercise of self-reflection – something that I don’t do enough of.
- It’s also a great opportunity for me to learn some quarto/css, which is what I’ll be using to create/format these posts.
So if you’re reading this, velkommen to the first instalment! I’ll try to keep these succinct and full of photos (you may even learn something about Danish culture). In addition, I’ll have a ‘photo-of-the-month’ section at the end (taken with my camera).
2024 starts with a bang
Actually, it’s more like bangs for a whole week leading up to NYE. For some reason, Danes light a lot of fireworks. According to DR (the national broadcaster), 500 million DKK (111 million AUD) is spent annually on personal fireworks. That’s a lot for a country of 5.8 million, and doesn’t include the estimated 1.7 tonnes of illegally imported fireworks. Growing up as a kid in NZ, I remember getting a small pack to light for one night (Guy Fawkes). However, here, fireworks are legal to purchase from the 15th of December, but only to fire from the 28th of December – 1st of January. The reality is that people are lighting them weeks leading up to NYE (due to a lack of enforcement) – and they are way louder than what we had in NZ (it’s basically military-grade ordinance). Even with the excellent building insulation in Denmark (we have triple-glazing), you can still hear bozos lighting them at 11 PM on a weeknight…
It looks like public opinion is changing, with >50% of surveyed Danes supporting a ban on personal firework usage (ref). In addition, the government is looking to restrict personal usage to between the 31st of December and 1st of January for 2024-2025. Though I’m not confident that this will be enforced. Perhaps I should have brought my 600 mm telescopic lens with me to Denmark to catch people in the act? If you’re interested in some anecdotes from the locals, check out this reddit thread.
Snow in Copenhagen
We don’t get a lot of snow in Copenhagen, but some snow is more than I ever got living in Australia and NZ, and so I’m always excited when we get some! I’m keen put together a post analysing and visualizing historical snowfall trends in Copenhagen, so keep your eyes out.
© 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
Return of the Fastelavnsboller
What the heck is a Fastelavnbolle (and how do you even pronounce it)? For this piece, I’m bringing in my historical and cultural correspondent (Dr Matilda Handsley-Davis) for some background on this tasty topic:
Fastelavn is a Danish festival with Christian roots. It’s part of the same tradition as Carnival or Mardi Gras – a chance to indulge in some excess just before the start of Lent. Unsurprisingly, fatty and sugary treats play a large role in this indulgence – hence, the Fastelavnsbolle (Fastelavn bun). A ‘gammeldags’ (‘olden days’) version is a sweet, yeasted bun filled with marzipan and/or whipped cream, topped with chocolate icing.
However, Danish bakeries nowadays (maybe especially in Copenhagen?) are engaged in an annual arms race to create the most popular, delicious, or outrageous combinations of pastries, fillings, and flavours. Croissant dough, berries, citrus curd, and mascarpone are some popular avant-garde ingredients. Some bakeries also dabble in the Swedish version, ‘semla’ – a soft, cardamom-spiced bun with roasted almonds and a lot of whipped cream. While the diversity is exciting, having now tasted about six or seven different varieties across this and last year, I would actually say that a good-quality gammeldags number is hard to beat.
The actual day of Fastelavn is seven weeks before Easter Sunday, so it always falls in February or early March – but the boller seem to hit the shelves as soon as everyone has recovered from New Year’s Eve. It’s surely not a coincidence that the season for this ultimate comfort food falls in a gloomy and dark time of year when everyone’s a bit sick of winter.
Interestingly, Fastelavn also bears quite a few similarities to Halloween. Kids traditionally dress up in costumes and go from house to house singing and asking for Fastelavnsboller. If they don’t get them, they may ‘make trouble’ – so kind of the Danish version of trick-or-treating. Children may also gather to ‘hit the cat out of the barrel’ with sticks – now a kind of pinata filled with lollies and maybe a paper cat. Back in the day, the tradition was quite a bit darker – an actual cat, symbolising the Devil, would be put into an actual barrel and set upon by people bearing sticks. This was supposed to symbolise driving evil away.
To finish up, here is an approximate phonetic pronunciation guide for ‘Fastelavnsbolle’: fess-tuh-lowns-boh-luh (the ‘ow’ as in ‘how’ or ‘clown’)
Story by Matilda – she may be making more contributions in the future.
Looks like pizza is back on the menu boys!**
I love pizza, but making a good pie at home is tough without a speciality pizza oven. A key element is the high heat required to cook said pizzas quickly – allowing for the base to be properly cooked, and for a nice spring in the crust. Years ago I previously tried a pizza stone but found it still wasn’t getting hot enough or cooking the pizzas quickly – ending my hopes of making good pies at home. Flash forward to 2023, when I came across a video by simpel dourdough demonstrating the use of a steel for making pizza. I decided to give it a shot, and the first attempt came out really nice!
I guess steel is far more conductive than stone, so the heat transfer to the pizza is much higher. The first two pizzas were cooked back-to-back, and took only 3.5 minutes each! I’m using a sourdough (66% hydration), cold fermenting in the fridge for 1-7 days. It’s actually a super convenient weeknight meal. I make the dough on the weekend, and on the night just need to fire up the oven, shape, top, and bake! If you want to learn more about the pros/cons of stones vs. steels, check out this article by seriouseats.
Photo of the month
© 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
Interesting things I’ve read/watched
Our world in datahas some brilliant visualizations of data on a range of topics. Here’s one on the environmental impacts of various foods, and why plant-based milks are better for the environment than dairy milk. IMO you should give plant-based drinks a try again – they’ve really improved (oat is my favourite).
Why Swiss trains are the best in the world: Really nice video showing how great the Swiss train network is. The received wisdom is that Swiss trains are the best in the world, but this videos actually runs you through why this is the case. If you like it, check out his other videos – he makes great content relating to civic planning/transportation. I particularly liked the quote attributed to a former mayor of Bogotá Colombia:
An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.
