The EmT Plate: Danish Food Festival

10.26.2008

Danish Food Festival

Next weekend I am throwing a Danish food festival to celebrate the 100th anniversary of my grandfather's birth. Christian Rasmussen was born in Odense, Denmark (Hans Christian Andersen's hometown) on November 1, 1908 and emigrated to the United States as a young man. Chris settled in Detroit, MI and married Irene Petsch (the daughter of German immigrants) in July, 1933. They had three daughters - Ann Marie, Karen Lee, and Sallylou. By the time my mom came along in 1950, Chris and Irene had moved to Sandusky, MI, where they had a small dairy farm.

When my mom graduated from college, Chris and Irene sold the farm and moved to a small island in Caseville, MI year-round. The "house on the big water" is where I spent many a holiday, family birthday, or plain lazy summer afternoon. Their tiny house was always full of delicious smells - frikadeller, roasts, pies, cakes, or whatever else my grandma happened to be cooking or baking that day. When it was time to eat, Grandma would send me out to call folks to the table with "vaske spise!" (wash up and eat!)

I'm planning several of my favorite Danish dishes for next Saturday's party - so stay tuned for the recipes! I'll be making aebleskiver, rødkaal, frikadeller, vegetarfrikadeller (okay, my grandma would never have made vegetarian frikadeller, but I'm intrigued and will try it), and aeblekage.

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New and Improved! Vegetarian! Soy Free!

Although a few of the older recipes on this page do contain meat (helpfully tagged with "meat"), almost everything here is vegetarian. Even better, almost everything here is soy-free!* When I tell people that I eat a soy-free vegetarian diet, they sometimes look at me as though I've got a screw loose. "A vegetarian that doesn't eat soy?" they ask. Yes! Vegetarians existed long before soy grits, textured soy protein, and other soy-based meat replacers, and it is quite possible to eat a soy-free vegetarian diet if you do much of your own cooking and read the labels on prepared foods.

* Although none of the recipes here intentionally include soy, some of those that include prepackaged ingredients, such as cake or quick bread mixes, may contain traces of soy. If you are allergic to soy or are otherwise trying to avoid soy in your diet, please check the ingredients of any prepackaged foods you are using in these recipes.

The Adventures of an Accidental Foodie

Some might say that I showed early signs of being a foodie (my first words were "veal parmigiana;" on camping trips I was the queen of making made-to-order s'mores by the time I was 4). And I do have impeccable foodie lineage (my grandmother's holiday meals rarely boasted fewer than a dozen dishes, between the vegetables, starches, meats, and desserts; my mother was awarded "Betty Crocker Future Homemaker of America" in high school [emphasis on the "future," she liked to remind us when I was growing up]; my father never shied away from being the primary chef while I was in school). However, I neglected my culinary whims and grew up to be a botanist.

...Okay, a botanist that spent a lot of time at her summer camp job making salads out of wild greens, brewing pine needle tea, picking berries and sumac for pink lemonade....But I still grew up to be a botanist.

And yet, I've realized that I did grow up to be a foodie. I love cooking, baking, and eating. I love sharing my love of food...and so I've put together The EmT Plate to share some of my favorite recipes, restaurants, and readings about food. Please share yours, too.

My Bookshelf...And Other Entertainments

Cookbooks
~ 1000 Indian Recipes [Neelam Batra: Wiley 2002]
~ Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 12th ed. [Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen 2003]
~ Grace Lutheran Church Cookbook [Grace Lutheran Church, Pontiac, MI 1998]
~ The Martha Cook Building Cookbook [Martha Cook Building, Ann Arbor, MI 2001]
~ Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I [Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck: Knopf 1961, 2009]
~ Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites [The Moosewood Collective: Clarkson Potter 1996]

Books about Food
~ Cod: A Biography of the Fish the Changed the World [Mark Kurlansky: Penguin 1998]
~ The Food of a Younger Land: A portrait of American food–before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional – from the lost WPA files [Mark Kurlansky: Riverhead Books 2009]
~ Salt: A World History [Mark Kurlansky: Penguin 2003]
~ Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating: How to Choose the Best Bread, Cheeses, Olive Oil, Pasta, Chocolate, and Much More [Ari Weinzweig: Houghton Mifflin 2003]

Movies About Food
~ Bottleshock [2008]
~ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [2005] or Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory [1971]
~ Chocolat [2000]
~ Julie & Julia [2009]
~ Ratatouille [2007]
~ Supersize Me [2004]