Denmark

In Denmark the main Christmas dinner is eaten on the evening of December 24. The table usually carries flæskesteg, roast pork with crisp crackling, or andesteg, roast duck stuffed with apples and prunes, and some families serve both. The sides are the same either way: braised red cabbage and brunede kartofler, potatoes caramelized in sugar and butter and made only at Christmas. Dessert is risalamande, cold rice pudding with cherry sauce and one hidden almond; whoever finds it wins a small prize, often a marzipan pig. Through December, bowls of pebernødder sit on the table and mulled wine is sold at Christmas markets.

The Danish chapter is mostly everyday pork and winter meals. Gule ærter, yellow pea soup with salted pork and sausage, is a winter supper, and stegt flæsk med persillesovs, crisp pork belly with parsley sauce, was voted the national dish in 2014. Frikadeller and boller i karry, meatballs in curry sauce, are everyday dinners, and æbleflæsk, pork belly with apples fried in its fat, also appears on julefrokost buffets. Grønlangkål, creamed kale with smoked pork loin, belongs to the julefrokost season and New Year's Eve. Fastelavnsboller are the buns of Fastelavn, on February 7, and brunsviger is the brown sugar cake of Funen.

The Danish menu starts with Rejemad, an open sandwich of buttered white bread heaped with small shrimp, mayonnaise, dill and lemon. The main course is Brændende kærlighed, burning love: everyday mashed potatoes with bacon straight from the pan and sweet pickled beets on the side; nobody knows for certain where the name came from. Dessert is Æblekage, an unbaked dessert of stewed apples, sugar-toasted crumbs and whipped cream layered in glasses.

The Danish menu is built around påskefrokost, the Easter lunch, on Easter Sunday, March 28, 2027. It opens with herring, here karrysild, curried herring, and rugbrød, the dark rye bread, is the base of its open sandwiches. Then come warm tartlets filled with chicken and asparagus, hønsesalat, a chicken salad, and porretærte, a warm leek tart. Skidne æg, eggs in mustard sauce, take their name from skidenlørdag, a nickname for Holy Saturday, March 27, when they were traditionally eaten. Citronmåne, a lemon cake, is served with coffee, and citronfromage, a lemon mousse, suits the spring.