It’s weird how you don’t realize you miss things untill they appear right in front of you. When we drove over the hills from Santa Barbara into Solvang on one of our detours that is exactly what I thought. There, in the middle of California, a tiny piece of Denmark – my father’s native land and the country I spent pretty much every summer of my childhood in – appeared like a mirage. Only this is the real thing: A tiny village settled by Danish farmers that has kept true to it’s roots and retained pretty much everything that is Danish.

Stereotypically wonderful

It’s a joke passed between Europeans travelling to the USA that where old cultures have been carried to the land of milk and honey it is always exaggerated, often to the point of charicature. Not so in Solvang. Even though the vilagers have managed to capture pretty  much every Danish archetype imaginable in a tiny area which only covers about 10 blocks, it is done in taste and with such attention to detail it is hard to distinguis the copy from the real thing.

Entering Solvang you’ll find it all: Storks on the roofs (in Denmark a stork roosting on your roof is considered good luck), bakeries aplenty, street side cafes, wind mills, a Carlsberg horse towing a cart, stores selling almost exclusively Christmas decorations and ornaments, an H.C. Andersen museum, a scale model of the Little Mermaid statue and even a 1/3 scale model of Rundetaarn – both famous Copenhagen attraction. Incredibly the tiny town is also placed in an area that looks remarkably like Denmark (if you ignore the distant mountains). The rolling hills and grass covered farmland is so close to the real thing it is almost scary. Driving toward the town Angela actually burst out “This looks just like Denmark!”

A taste (or ten) of Denmark

Anny and Angela eating traditional Danish dinner

Anyone who has been to Denmark will tell you that the Danish culture is heavily focussed around food. And good food at that. The problem is that the so-called “Danishes” you get in North America are a complete travesty compared to the real thing. In fact a Danish baker would scoff at most of the danishes you find in USA or Canada and refuse to even touch them. Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries also has a strong tradition when it comes to dinners, especially the use of meats. Most North Americans are familiar with Swedish meatballs like the ones  you get at IKEA. Well, there’s a whole range of different types of meatballs and other dishes in the same family as well as a massive assortment of lunch dishes like open faced sandwhiches that are unique to these cultures. And like the true Danish pastries, these dishes are pretty much impossible to find anywhere else. Except in Solvang.

Going to The Little Mermaid Cafe you can order hakkebøf (sort of like a big hamburger that doesn’t really taste like a hamburger) with potatoes and pickled red cabbage, medisterkager and medisterpølser (meatballs and sausages that taste heavenly) and an assortment of other traditional dishes – all served up with boiled potatoes and greens. And for desert you can have Tilslørte Bondepiker (literally “veiled peasant girls” – a layered mix of whipped cream, apple sauce and bread crumbs).

Several of the bakeries and restaurants also offer one of the most inaccurately named and most treasured baked goods you can get in Denmark: Æbleskiver (literal translation “apple slices”) which contains no apples and is actually a ball of pancace-like dough cooked in specially shaped pans. Delicious.

If that’s not to your liking you can go to Olsen’s Bageri and buy true traditional Danish pastries like Napoleon’s Hats, Napoleon cake, Kransekage, Swedish Delight, Seven Sisters cake, rum balls, Sarah Bernard, school bread and tons of other sweet, savoury and salty baked goods that will make your mouth water and your belly explode.

Morten loves licorice. This store had all the sorts he's missed the last 8 years.

Finally, if you’re truly adventurous and want to try something utterly Scandinavian, go to  Ingeborg’s Chocolates and buy some salty licorice from their huge selection. In my almost 8 years in Canada I’ve discovered that North Americans not only don’t have proper licorice, but they don’t know what it tastes like and they usually hate it. Talking to other Scandinavians and even Dutchmen who usually love the super salty and ammonia like black treats it’s clear that for whatever reason the taste for this delicious candy never made it across the Atlantic with the rest of the European culture. I’ve not been able to find proper black licorice anywhere in Vancouver so when the smell of salt, licorice and ammonia hit me as I walked through the doors of Ingeborg’s I was in heaven. Yes, I know most people hate the black stuff but seriously, to me there is no better candy!

Seriously, you should go!

Our intention was to drop by to see what the town was all about but we ended up spending two full days there taking in the sights and enjoying the super relaxed and calm atmosphere. It was a nice change from the overtly hectic and chaotic Los Angeles life. When we left all I could think of was that we have to go back at some point, probably around Christmas time, and spend a good week or so. There is just too much to see and too much great food, delicious pastries and relaxing to be had for just a couple of days. If you’re ever in the area, or ever wanted to visit Denmark but didn’t want to travel all the way to Europe, make your way to Solvang, California, and stay for a few days. Or a lot of days. Or forever. It is both bizarre and magnificent at the same time and a place everyone should visit.

Oh, and on top of it all Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is a 15 minute drive away – not that you can see much except the gates. But still, it’s pretty cool.

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