(Permission was obtained to share this convo…)
A player asked to join my FS. I was surprised to learn the person is from Denmark. Woohoo, we're getting a viking! I guess I will have to follow through about the breadcrumb story. And then I asked, “What is the General Tso’s Chicken of Danish cuisine, if that sentence even makes sense to you?” YES, I WENT THERE! I have a curious mind and a hungry belly. I need to know these things. For example, I thought the General Tso's Chicken of Indian food was Tendori Chicken, but apparently it's
Butter Chicken and Tendori Chicken can be hit or miss. This mistake has led to two poor experiences that may or may not involve smallest rooms and now I have to be chaperoned whenever I go eat Indian food. So what is the popular, well-known, “safe” go-to Danish food (that may not even be authentically Danish)? I don't have the budget to eat at Noma to learn for myself. Nothing comes to mind except, well, the danish. To my surprise, I was asked back, "What is a danish?"
Whaaaa...aaat? A Dane just asked me what’s a danish??
*
POOF* Mind. Is. Blown. But I suppose they would just call it pastry over there. I pasted the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of Danish:
“1. The Germanic language of the Danes 2. Plural Danish: a piece of Danish pastry”.
Then I got a second reply saying, “I googled, we call it wiener brød (wiener bread). I assume named after the capitol in Austria...” Wiener, as in like hot dog-esque products? What does that have to do with a danish? A danish is also nothing like a hot dog bun either, that I know of. Plus, isn’t the capitol of Austria Vienna? Did I miss
@MaidenFair or
@Darielle's etymology class where it was explained Vienna was derived from wiener? <confused> Still. Imagine being a Dane having to google a danish! This has epic level entertainment value. Like, imagine an American having to sit at their computer to google American. Finally, I got, “I think the national dish is stegt flæsk med persillesovs.” No...that clearly
CAN’T be the General Tso’s chicken of Danish cuisine because I don’t even know what the heck you just said to me! And then the conversation ends with, “To add to the confusion then, we call this french potatoes in Danish:
(inserts picture of potato chips).” What? Come onnnnn, I’ve watched enough Food Network to know French is a type of cut and that's NOT IT!
Well, I'm now going to add "Got a Dane to google danish" on my list of personal achievements, right under "Inventing a snack even helya wouldn't stash". All very useful and marketable traits. Thank you, Elvenar, for helping me expand my culinary résumé. I look forward to asking a Swede about Swedish Fish next.