En ferie - first holidays
En ferie, a holiday , often goes hand in hand with family, your own and bonus families. I’m it changes when you have your own child, then it is a time when you can visit and stay with parents and also journey with other families. My own family holidays as a child varied from seaside in Blackpool and Newquay (the photo with my dad), visits to my Aunty Sandra in Louisiana. The first journeys from Stroud with my baby were to Dartmouth with Nanny and Lausanne to visit his grandfather. The first rail trip was from Denmark to Olofström to see the Volvo factory. A bonus family in Denmark means that the school holidays in the last few years have meant travelling to a house on Fyn, Denmark. This not only means a journey across France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany but a journey from the hills to an expanse of flatland, from a flat above a shop on the High Street to a thatched cottage with a mature garden a short cycle from the sea. I particularly like holidaying in the same spot, it gives you more of an opportunity to be part of a culture different to our own. The farming land surrounding the cottage is very different to the area of countryside in the Cotswolds.
We are very lucky that our neighbours in Fyn share the stories and traditions of the area in North Fyn and on arrival we are invited for a cuppa or a gin and a catch up. I have received many recipes which I will share, the first being grød, where Danes take it much further than oat porridge. This summer on arrival our neighbours shared a typical meal of herring topped with a curried yoghurt and sliced onion served with new potatoes but for pudding I was introduced to Maizena, which we are selling in a mepal container, this is cornflour made into a grød with milk and then served warm with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. It reminded me of a warm blancmange, which my Granny Waring served with tinned fruit set in jelly, both comforting and typical weekday puddings. Another name for maizenagrød is fløjelsgrød, velvet porridge, the porridge recipe book, pictured was the first gift given to me from my Danish friend.
