Jeppe's Kål - A Danish Tradition

" everybody says that Jeppe drinks, but nobody asks why Jeppe drinks "

This is the most famous line from the 1722 play by Ludvig Holberg called "Jeppe På Bjerget"

it's about an alcoholic farmer and the mess he makes of his life. It's a comedy.

Every New Year's Eve Danish families will get together and sing special songs based on Jeppe På Bjerget. The words are quite difficult and if someone messes them up they become "Jeppe" for the evening and they have to wear a special hat that has been passed down in the family for generations. Snaps are served and finally the evenings dish Jeppes Kål is served. The family hold hands and do a counter-clockwise dance around the table while reciting the "Hilsen Til Jeppe's Kål" a poem which translates something like this:

Happy are our hearts this night

hop round the olden chair

feast we now cabbage and meat

 the Dansk sol skinner over Jeppes bjerg

Photo of Jeppes Kål from the Danish national cookbook

The recipe for Jeppes Kål is something every housewife  knows by heart. I used the recipe out of the standard Danish chef textbook Kokke Bogen. Jeppe's Kål is basically a giant family size cabbage roll surrounded by medister sausage and topped with super delicious poutine like gravy. Boiled potatos and beets are served on the side. A special knife is used to slice and serve the dish at the table. Hidden somewhere inside the dish is small piece of red LEGO. Whoever finds it gets a special prize. Usually a type of very salty liquorice.

First you need to cook cabbage leaves whole like for cabbage rolls. Next a mixture of ground pork, chopped roast pork (usually leftover from Christmas dinner), sauteed chopped parsnip, carrot, leek, and spices are formed in a farse and wrapped in the leaves. The entire thing is braised for a few hours and the juices are turned into the gravy. Medister pork sausages are fried and placed around the stuffed cabbage.

Here is the recipe from the cookbook

This is the spice blend #3 the recipe is referring to

The recipe calls for 50g of Snowflake which is a modified cornstarch. I think regular cornstarch will work just as well

I hope you make this delicious Danish dish a part of your New Year's tradition.

The Wonderful World of Tube Food

I grew up with milk in a bag. I assumed the whole world did. I was wrong. It turns out bagged milk is something unique to Ontario. Everyone else thinks it's funny and weird, maybe even gross, but I see it as normal, even preferable. This is the situation most Swedes will find themselves in when foreigners come across their food packaged in toothpaste tubes.

Dining at the Forgotten Movie Theaters of Bangkok

One Morning I went to Jok Prince for breakfast. It's considered one of Bangkok's best congee shops. When I was finished I looked down the alleyway and decided it seemed quite interesting. Wandering down, I soon came across what looked like an abandoned cinema. I thought it seemed pretty cool that this theater was just sitting there hidden in the back of a maze of alleys, so I walked around this little hidden neighbourhood and took some photos. When I got back to my guest house a wanted to see if I could find out anything more about this place, and came across a blog called 
The Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project
Holy cow, what an interesting blog! It turns out there are many abandoned and re-purposed movie theaters all over Southeast Asia. I went to see a few in Bangkok, and found in every place, some entrepreneur had set up shop and was selling food.
The following is a run down of some of the places I went to and what you can expect to eat there if you visit: