Dave's Travel Journals
A Traditional Danish Recipe
Copenhagen, Denmark: August 13, 2001
By Dave Fox
For those of you who wish you could be here in Denmark, but can't, I thought I would share with you this extremely traditional Danish recipe for something that you can consume that will thrill and amaze your friends at parties.
This ingestible thing is called a "kande." Kande sort of (but not really) rhymes with panda, and means "pitcher." Here is what you must do to make this extremely interesting and cultural Danish recipe, which, for the record, REALLY IS served at at least one pub here in Copenhagen:
1) Get a pitcher. If you do not have a pitcher, buy one. Or acquire one by creating a distraction....
How to create a distraction:
Visit your local bar with a friend. If you do not have a friend, hire a person with no morals to assist you. Next, order a pitcher of beer. Next, have your friend or person with no morals create a distraction by clucking like a pterodactyl whilst doing a striptease. Next, while everybody in the bar is distracted, stuff the pitcher in your pants (or bra) and run. Next, look outside while your friend or person with no morals gets arrested. Next, follow the rest of this recipe:
1 (part 2) ) Pour one shot of Gammel Dansk into the pitcher. (Gammel Dansk -- translation: "Old Danish") -- is a bitter, similar to Jägermeister only sweeter.
2) Add a shot of Pernod (a snooty, yet refreshing, French aperitif that tastes like licorice.)
3) Add one small bottle of orange soda.
4) Add a half liter of lager beer.
5) Add a half liter of porter beer.
6) Pour into a glass.
7) Drink.
8) Go to bed, you damn drunk!
I have known about this beverage for two years but have never tried one before now because most of the people I know here are too intelligent to ingest such things.
You, on the other hand, are not so intelligent, and should therefore try this.
I ordered a kande with a couple of co-guides for the first time a couple of nights ago, and we were convinced the next day (honestly) that we felt better than we have in years. It tasted like rootbeer.
Speaking of the next day, tomorrow is one, and it is frightfully close. So I have no time to tell you right now about how I roared confidently into the hotel lobby Saturday afternoon at 4, an hour before my introductory meeting / picnic, and discovered that the room I always use for our introductory meeting had suddenly been destroyed. It was a character-building moment in my life, which required pathetic groveling and bribery to fix.
I am proud to say that my pathetic grovelling was successful, and the tour has begun. I have survived Copenhagen and am off to the island of Ærø tomorrow... if I don't die in my sleep from a rare chemical reaction between Gammel Dansk, Pernod, and Carlsberg Porter.
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