Danes Vote on National Dish

By Carol L. Schroeder, co-author of Eat Smart in Denmark, for The Danish Pioneer Newspaper – 

It’s official – the national dish is stegt flæsk med kartofler og persillesovs, which is slices of fried pork belly served with potatoes in a béchamel white sauce with parsley. In fact stegt flæsk, which represented Southern Jutland in Food Minister Dan Jørgensen’s poll, received almost 28,000 of the 63,000 votes cast.

Jørgensen himself voted for smørrebrød, which came in second with 17,000 votes, followed by hakkebøf as a distant third.  For reasons known only to those who set up the survey, smørrebrød represented East Jutland and hakkebøf was the candidate from Copenhagen.

Although the first round of voting was strictly based on popularity, the final round involved inviting celebrity chefs from different regions to prepare “New Nordic” versions of the top eight dishes.  Few fans of stegt flæsk med kartofler og persillesovs, a popular and inexpensive meal, would recognize the winning version of the dish by Ninna Bundgaard Christensen. Christensen is a young sous chef at Comwell in Southern Jutland.  (Recipe in Danish)

The purpose of the vote for Denmark’s national dish – aside from being a vehicle to get Dan Jørgensen to become a household name – was to draw attention to what Danes eat.  The goal was not necessarily to glorify Danish food traditions, since spaghetti with meat sauce was originally in the running. Happily the ten final candidates were all tried and true staples of Danish cuisine, although frikadeller had mysteriously not made the cut.

The vote for Denmark’s national dish has been criticized as being a publicity stunt, but it did initiate a great deal of discussion about Danish food culture.  The survey was part of Jørgensen’s ‘food revolution’, an effort to get Danes to focus on eating healthier and more local foods.

“Danish and New Nordic Cuisine have become known the world over. But here at home in our own kitchens, we often forget our culinary roots. The national dish has helped us to rediscover and develop our food traditions,” Jørgensen said in a press release.

Ironically, the meal that was chosen as the Danish national dish does nothing to promote the idea of eating healthier. The pork slices are served crispy and fatty, the white potatoes in a white sauce are not top choices nutritionally – and a few flakes of parsley are the only representatives of the vegetable family in stegt flæsk med persillesovs. But it does taste delicious!

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