Smørrebrød - Danish sandwiches gone vegan

In my recent weekend in Denmark, I kept seeing restaurants and cafes offering Smørrebrød.

Smørrebrød is - are? - open faced sandwiches. Apparently, so the internet tells me, smørrebrød is Danish for buttered bread, and usually involves a slice of rye bread with a variety of fillings laid on top.

In Denmark, these fillings would normally be things like liver pate and cucumber, herring, beef with onions, or cheese of some sort. You've noticed there's not much vegan there, right?

You're not wrong - in my four days in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, I saw one vegetarian and no vegan smørrebrød choices, and the veggie one seemed a little odd: potato, tomato, and mayo. Maybe it's tradition that veggies have to only eat smørrebrød topped with things that end in the letter o?

So, when I got back home, I knew I had to fix up some smørrebrød of my own.

I used the rye bread I brought back from Copenhagen, and whipped up these fellas:

From left to right - Saf cashew cheese with olives, tomato, and pickled gherkins; avocado, chipotle mayonnaise and roasted pumpkin seeds; and hummus with carrot and spring onions.

Yep, they were good. I can see why the Danes had the good sense to ditch the second layer of bread and let the fillings do their thing.

The internet also reckons that the Danish say that a meal for a man is three smørrebrød, and two for a woman. Pah! I laugh in the face of such gender-determined eating. I stepped up to a manly three smørrebrød and cleared my plate.

May I suggest that we rewrite that saying? I propose the following: two smørrebrød for a woman, three smørrebrød for a man, and four smørrebrød for a greedy, happy vegan.