The above is how imagined grocery shopping in Denmark to be. Instead grocery stores here have reinforced how spoiled I have been for choice my entire adult life. By the time I was in college the Food Network was a thing. I started cooking regularly in New Orleans which is a food haven. Then I moved to Houston. There was a Whole Foods less than a block away and Hong Kong Market on the other side of town. By the time I left we also had Central Market and their amazing sauce bar. In New Jersey I discovered Trader Joe’s. And for nine of the ten years I was in Korea we had access to a CostCo. When we moved back to our hometown not only had they had gotten a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe’s, and a CostCo there was a lot more access to Asian and Latin markets due to changes in demographics. Basically, no matter what recipe I found online or dreamed up myself I had ready access to the ingredients or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Denmark is different. There are a bunch of different grocery stores with several different options available within walking distance of both the hotel on Islands Brygge and around our apartment here. There there was a Netto, an Irma, a Rama 1000, a Lidl, and a Fotex. Here we lack the Rama and the Lidl but have a Fakta and a Meny. Netto Lidl, Fakta, and Rama are cheap. Irma is high end. Meny is like a grocery store back home and Fotex is Target light.
The good news is that the hours are much better than I expected. The Netto nearest us is open 24/7! The thing is they seem to be more different in style than in options. The cheese choices are good, but not amazing. Not a lot of variety in meats at all. You would think a country so rife with pork would embrace a wider variety of sausages! I get that the EU is a closed market, much more so than we realised, but what’s stopping people from making sausages in the style of those found outside of the EU? I don’t think I will invest in a smoker, but I am definitely going to have to figure out how to flavor ground pork for styles I like. I attempted a few batches in Korea but it’s a lot of work for results best described as tepid when the corner market carries Cajun sausage.
The fruits and vegetables seem more local and more seasonal. Good things, but I do miss the plethora of choices we had back home: broccoli rabe, pomelo, spaghetti squash, sigh. There are, however, a few things in the aisiles that I have never seen before that look intriguing. Especially in the seafood section. As much as I am not enamored of the way that the local seafood is prepared I cannot deny that the quality is excellent. Looking forward to a little experimentation there.
Meanwhile my cooking has taken on a kind of Spanish North African flavor with Mediterranean influence. I have done tortellini soups, chickpea and chorizo stews, chicken seasoned with paprika, tapas, and even a Berber inspired beef stew. It’s definitely taking me longer to find my culinary footing here. But you can’t say the journey isn’t interesting.