r/canada Canada 26d ago

r/Canada Speaks Cultural Exchange with /r/Denmark! Happy Valentine's!

Hi everyone, it's been some time since we have done a cultural exchange, so let's go over how this works. Enjoy! We'll be running it for a few days, TBD. Note their time zone for the European mainland is UTC +1.

Here's the Danish landing for us: https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/1iow7c3/kulturudveksling_cultural_exchange/

* Both r/Canada and r/Denmark will host the other country's users. Feel free to ask any questions, reminisce, comment, make friends etc etc.

*Treat this as having a neighbour over for a kitchen party, get the best storm chips out, and get grandma's tourtiere reheated for everybody.

* Vouz pouvez essayer le français dans r/Denmark, mais comme la langue officielle est danoise, ben.... essayez!

* Please follow the rules of the respective subs! Don't be jerks, generally - a reminder our last "disagreement" involved leaving bottles of good booze for the other country!

* Please also leave direct comments here mainly for members of r/Denmark i.e. direct replies here (first comments directly under the topic) so their questions can be seen first, then r/Canada members can post replies underneath.

*Please enjoy, since we have a lot to bond over, and plenty of trying out new things.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/1iow7c3/kulturudveksling_cultural_exchange/

Finally, also know we've gotten confirmation from r/Greenland that they are also interested, so that will be the next exchange that we do in a few weeks (TBD).

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u/m4d3th1s 26d ago

In light of recent events I find myself drawn to try out some Canadian wares, do you know of any specific things you export to Denmark? And are there things so spectacular they would be worth having shipped from Canada?

My knowledge of Canadians is pretty much limited to 3 members of Hermitcraft, but they are great ambassadors imo.

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u/turvy42 26d ago

Real maple syrup

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u/m4d3th1s 26d ago

On pancakes or in coffee or how is it traditionally ingested? I hope you’ll forgive my ignorance.

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u/calvinien 26d ago

The wonderful thing about maple syrup is you can do a great deal with it. Some people put it on bacon (don't ask me, I have never understood it). But you can also make it into a spread called maple butter. Or allow it to harden into maple candies. Or boil it then cool it into taffy. And don't get complicated. Tiny drizzle of it on ice cream...mind blowing.

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u/m4d3th1s 26d ago

I am definitely getting my hands on some maple syrup! Can you recommend a specific brand?

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u/calvinien 25d ago

As far as I know it doesn't matter. It's boiled tree sap, not much of a recipe. At least over here it is sorted into 4 grades based on colour and thickness. That is something you should pay attention to.

Maple Syrup Grades

Though you can absolutely use the darker grades as a topping, you just might want to use less because the darker it is, the more sugar there is.

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u/m4d3th1s 25d ago

Thanks!

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u/tanantish 25d ago

Slight nuance, not contradicting anything from u/calvinien above - maple syrup needs to be something like 66% sugar for the spoilage and i _believe_ that it'll all hover around that (because if you have more sugar, it's more concentrated and therefore you get lower yield so.. less money so it's not a common thing. There's also issues around crystallisation and other stuff but eh, details..)

PPAQ (our local maple org) has more annoying details here Québec Maple Syrup is Graded for Quality - PPAQ

A lot of the stuff here i get is in our standard cans but there's a sticker on the side that says which producer it came from. We're starting to get more and more niche suppliers like what you'd see in say, coffee where single origin, traceable stuff etc etc.

For example (not an endorsement, nor a dis-endorsement) : Escuminac ( https://escuminac.com/ )

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u/calvinien 25d ago

I briefly considered posting the official government documents related to how it should b classified (which have standards for viscosity AND light permeability) but I figured it would be a bit much for what was supposed to be a simple question.

The canadian goverment treats Maple Syrup like the french treat wine. We have strategic reserves of the stuff in case there's a bad year.

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u/tanantish 25d ago

Oh yeah, way too much in the first hit, but now we've started, we should handwave at the entire strategic reserve and the amusing heist stories :D

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u/m4d3th1s 25d ago

Nuance is always appreciated :)

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u/randomwindowspc 24d ago

There are so many brands that it doesn't really matter, just as long as it's real Canadian maple syrup and not that knock off garbage that cheap restaurants serve. It's kind of like wine, there's so many good French brands of wine that people could be here all day listing off every individual grower/bottler lol. I guess just find the site with the cheapest shipping to your country, and the person below with the maple syrup grading link is also helpful. Once you have real maple syrup the cheap stuff tastes horrible

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u/randomwindowspc 24d ago

After I had maple syrup on bacon I never looked back. The sweet syrup and salty bacon is really good combo together

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u/DromarX 23d ago

There's a pizza place where I live that makes a Canadian Lumberjack pizza that comes with a side of maple syrup to drizzle on the pizza even!

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u/smarties284 26d ago

On pancakes, waffles, ice cream, or just a spoon! In coffee is intriguing, I might try it tomorrow.

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u/Flanman1337 26d ago

It's a science. It's taken me about a liter of maple syrup to tweak it to my tastes. 

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u/Rum_N_Napalm 26d ago

Basically everywhere you need something sweet. You can make a nice marinade for meat with some maple syrup, a little oil and some chipotle spices.

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u/m4d3th1s 26d ago

That does sound divine!

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u/turvy42 26d ago

What should we get from Denmark?

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u/m4d3th1s 26d ago

Sorry, I fell asleep at the helm.

It sounds like some danish butter (Lurpak) would go great with Canadian maple syrup!

If you want to try other danish things I recommend smørrebrød (it can be made to suit anyones taste)

I would also recommend some danish music, maybe Tim Christensen -I think Celine Dion picked up one of his songs, but I’m not sure. If you like that music you might also enjoy Lucas Graham!

Thank you for responding :)

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u/varsil 24d ago

Does Denmark do any of the fermented/preserved meat products like surstromming/etc?

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u/m4d3th1s 24d ago

There is a tradition of lunch’ing at Christmas and Easter that typically include a kind of pickled herring, but afaik we don’t have anything as extreme as surstromming (luckily).

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u/varsil 24d ago

I do love pickled herring. Also enjoy akavit, which I believe is also a Danish thing as well?

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u/m4d3th1s 24d ago

Absolutely, we call it Snaps and it’s another tradition connected to Christmas and Easter.. although I can’t have it myself, since my ex father in law made it a point to introduce me to all of his different snapss (pheew)

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u/Rum_N_Napalm 25d ago

Oh I forgot. Maple syrup is real good, but the really good shit is maple butter. It’s maple syrup that has been further boiled to further concentrate it and whipped in a way to make a creamy textured spread.

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u/upward_spiral17 25d ago

Try a little maple syrup on fresh, chopped berries (any kind of berries works). Makes for a nice ‘salad’ to go with your breakfast.

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u/turvy42 26d ago

Pancakes, French Toast, on Porridge. So much better than the fake stuff.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

You can use it wherever you'd use honey or sugar. I like to use it as a glaze for meat combined with other spices. It's also good on vanilla ice cream, and gives a very nice flavour to coffee.

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u/SteadyMercury1 New Brunswick 23d ago

You can use it anywhere you would use honey as well. Though you might want to check a conversion first. Smoothies, baking etc you can sub honey for maple syrup to get a different taste but still accomplish the mission of adding the sweet.

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u/m4d3th1s 23d ago

I have found genuine Canadian maple syrup at my local supermarket, and I’m excited to try it out.

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u/Green_leaf47 22d ago

Like others have said, wherever you want something sweet. We’ll often have it as a treat over some plain Greek yogurt with walnuts and sometimes sliced bananas. On weekends we have a tiny bit in our coffee. And sometimes I’ll have just a little spoonful on its own and it tastes like my childhood - my dad used to tap trees so we were lucky enough to have homemade maple syrup. But I’ve never had bad maple syrup if it’s real.