Autumn food – plentiful and nutritious

In the self-sufficient peasant home, herb gardens, cabbage fields, orchards and field crops were essential for survival and health. Food was provided by farm produce and seasonal produce, by the ability to harvest in the garden or to store and preserve the fresh produce for later use.

Late summer and fall provide bountiful gardens with abundant amounts of produce for making healthy and nutritious meals.

Old Danish recipes are instructions for preparing seasonal products – one of the earliest Danish cookbooks, “An artig og meget nyttig kogebog” (A clever and very useful cookbook), is from 1648. Over time, the instructions have become more and more versatile and their purposes have been different; useful, frugal, health-promoting, etc. Today, food and cookbooks have become identity- and lifestyle-creating.

In this teaching course, we take as our starting point the old Danish traditional ingredients that are linked to the season and create taste experiences of both historical and newer dishes.

 

Museum exhibitions

Age-appropriate dialogue-based tour with stories in the exhibitions.

Special focus on the cultural history of food, seasonal tasks in the self-sufficient farm home, customs and beliefs.

 

Activity

The students are divided into small groups. They work in the museum's experience kitchen, which offers the opportunity to prepare food in 4 authentic kitchens that look as they did in the years 1600, 1880, 1945/1950 and 1960/1970. The kitchens reflect the technological development from open fire, to wood stoves to gas and electricity. Characteristic historical recipes have been selected for each time period.

 

We get most of the raw materials from the museum's agricultural botanical garden, which mainly contains old useful plants from peasant gardens. The food prepared on the hearth could be apple compote, peasant girl with veil and sea cabbage. On the wood stove, buttermilk soup or hawker huts with berries and fruit could be prepared. In the kitchen from World War II, dishes such as stuffed leeks or a heavenly mouthful could be on the menu and in the 1960/70s, classics from Karoline's kitchen are selected.

 

Table setting and table manners provide insight into historical traditions.

The teaching process focuses on reading and interpreting historical recipes and instructions, converting units of measurement from ancient to modern measurements, and understanding the use of raw materials directly from the self-sufficient farm.

Each group presents their dish to the rest of the class, sharing excitement and learning.