Smurbrauð H.C. Andersen

HC Andersen Smörrebröd

Smörrebröd, this richly topped buttered bread (often with rye bread), is an important part of Scandinavian cuisine, especially in Denmark. But you can also find restaurants in Iceland that offer these rich sandwiches as a speciality, such as Jómfrúin in Reykjavík, which now also has a restaurant at the airport in Keflavík.

Buttered sandwiches used to be common when traveling and picking up food to eat along the way. The Danish "Smörrebröd" in the form we know today probably only developed around 1880 . The earliest known evidence of smörrebröd can be found on the menu of the elegant Copenhagen restaurant Nimb from 1883.

The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875) was the inspiration for this Snörrebröd - in his diaries, HC Andersen wrote down what he liked to eat most, and this special bread was then developed from these ingredients.

To quote The Muppet Show's chef: " Smørrebrød, smørrebrød, røm pøm pøm pøm. "

Ingredients for two servings

400 g liver pate

100 g breakfast bacon

100 g mushrooms

1 pinch of coarse sea salt

1 pinch of ground pepper

4 slices of bread

4 tsp salted butter

200 g red cabbage

Pickled cucumbers

Preparation

Heat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat. Cut the liver pate in half and place in the oven in a suitable dish until hot.

Wash and clean the mushrooms and cut them into small pieces.

In a hot skillet, brown the bacon and mushrooms; season with salt and pepper to taste.

Butter the bread and place two pieces of bread on each plate.

Take the hot liver pate out of the oven, place it on the bread and add half of the bacon and half of the mushrooms on top.

Then serve the bread with red cabbage and pickled cucumbers and serve immediately.

Bon appetit!

PS: The Little Mermaid on the Tjörnin

HC Andersen and his fairy tales have also left their mark on Iceland - today you can find his little mermaid again on Tjörnin , the city pond near the town hall in Reykjavík.

The statue " Hafmeyjan " (= "The Mermaid") by the Icelandic sculptor Nína Sæmundsson (1892 - 1965) was erected here in 1959.

The artist originally created her “Mermaid” for a hotel in Texas. After the hotel closed, she got her work back and stored it in her studio in California. There, Thor Thors, the then Icelandic ambassador to the United States, came across the statue and lobbied the Reykjavík city council to have the statue erected at Tjörnn. However, the statue was relatively controversial at the time - in letters to the editor, people complained that the statue, with its abstract tendencies, violated their "sense of beauty" and was a "shame" for the entire country. On New Year's Day 1960, the "Mermaid" was destroyed in an explosive attack. The crime was never solved; anti-Danish sentiments may have played a role or reservations against the artist because she had lived and worked in the USA for over 20 years.

However, there was another cast of the statue in the USA and Icelandic entrepreneurs finally brought it to Iceland, about 40 years after the first "Mermaid". The second statue was initially placed at Smáralind. The statue was moved in June 2014 and is now back at Tjörnin - like the first example in 1959.

[Translated from here.]