danish food week, day 1: smørrebrød

October 3, 2011

On a blog where most all food eventually reverts to sweets and desserts, I've decided to start with something savory: smørrebrød. Before visiting Denmark, I'd never heard of smørrebrød (or much Danish food, for that matter). One morning before heading out to town, I was scrolling through Pinterest and Johanna pinned a photo of smørrebrød. I thought it looked good and repinned it-- little did I know I'd be having some for lunch later that day!
smørrebrød cafe
In Holbæk, Maibritt took me to a tiny smørrebrød cafe (really, it was so small we walked right by it the first time) with a huge display of tons of smørrebrød. If you can't tell already, smørrebrød is pretty much an open-faced sandwich. They're beautiful garnished, come in a variety of options, and allow you to eat multiple kinds at a time as opposed to just eating one kind of sandwich.


homemade smørrebrød
Since we couldn't sit at the cafe and it was raining outside, we ate at the public library in Holbæk's city center. I was a little shocked at first (who eats in a library?! that's sacred, no-food allowed ground) but then saw that the library had a designated cafe just for people like us.
at the library
Holbæk Library Cafe
Of all of my lunches in Denmark, this was my favorite. (Although I'm sort of cheating, because the first and fifth photos are actually of Maibritt's homemade smørrebrød a few days later). Needless to say, I have a new favorite way to enjoy sandwich-esque ingredients.

Banner decals courtesy of Pugly Pixel.

10 comments:

  1. Wow. This looks incredible. The colors are amazing.

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  2. that cafe thing looks so cool. i'm surprised that that's such a common thing.

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  3. Nom nom nom!

    Those look...WELL.

    Scrumptious? Delectable? Mouthwatering?
    Succulent? Lipsmackingly tasty?

    (...okay, I'll cram it!)

    Now, lemme just figure out a way for you to teleport these over and-- heh heh.

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  4. I love these little open faced sandwiches. In Sweden, this similar to a typical Swedish breakfast, served along with drinkable yogurt and muesli. Since our visit, it has been a regular on my snack repertoire. We brought back some really tasty, gigantic disks of crisp bread and ate it with pickled herring.

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  5. Any dish that allows for multiple eating options is a winner in my book!

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  6. Mmmmm.... this food looks fantastic!! yum yum yum!!

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  7. oh wow! all of it looks interesting...i need to go up there for vacay...now i'm excited about the food :)

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  8. YUM! i love the idea of multiple, small, open-faced sandwiches. i have the hardest time choosing, so smørrebrøds would really solve a lot of my daily problems. :)

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  9. I love how colorful everything is!

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  10. so living in norway im definitely no strange to this type of sandwich! and i could eat 6 of them (ok not really, but i can put some down!). unfortunately, my weight increased after having no self control from an open faced sandwich so they have been put on the backburner for a while :) great post!!!

    love your blog <3

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