This is an advertisement from our local Shell Station in Herning. It is really a pretty good offer-- 8 rundstykker (breakfast buns) and 4 wienerbrød for 45 kroner (about 9 dollars). But that is not why the sign caught my eye this week. Look at the picture of the "wienerbrød" and tell me what you would call that?! I think every American would agree....we call that a DANISH! You know, that breakfast food that comes from DENMARK! You can get cream cheese Danishes, jelly Danishes, basically any kind of Danish you can imagine! But if the Danes themselves don't even call it a Danish, where on earth did we get that name from? Yes, technically "Wienerbrød" translates to "Danish", but you gotta wonder..... why do they call it something different? And did the Danes even really create it as we Americans have always believed that they did?
7 comments:
Wienerbrød or Danish pastry as it is called in the English speaking countries apparently stems from a bakery strike in Denmark in the 1850s.
Because the Danish bakers refused to work, bakers from Vienna, Austria, were hired to do the job.
These Austrian bakers brought with them their own recipe for butter pastry, hence the name Wienerbrød (Vienna bread).
Once the strike was resolved and the Danish bakers went back to work, they took this pastry recipe and changed it, making their own version of it, which then became the Danish pastry you know today.
This is why it's called Danish pastry outside of Denmark, Wienerbrød in Denmark, and why it doesn't taste like the Austrian pastry.
The circle is now complete and the Austrians make their own version of the Danish pastry, which originated from the Austrian pastry and call it Dänischer Plunder. :)
Hmmm, weinerbrød translates to Danish? Huh, I would have said, Weiner bread...hahaha...ok, cool, learned something new. And you know I think if you study the origns of a lot of foods and see how the names changed to fit where they were brought too...you'd be surprised. Would be kinda odd for Danes to say I'm running to McDonalds to get a Danish...now wouldn't it??? hahahaha...and that is a great deal by the way. I think the best deal I've seen here is "Boller" six pack for like...40kr.
Heh. I alway figured since it was a pastry coming from Denmark, we called it a Danish, as wienerbrød doesn't roll so easily off the tongue. the OED seems to agree, I think, as it says "Danish" (referring to the pastry) was shortened from "Danish pastry" in the 1900s. :)
Of course as we are far from Denmark and have unfamiliar ingredients in the good ol' US, we offer a more peculiar version of their pastries :)
I think it's a case of them calling it what it's actually called, and us calling it "that pastry from denmark - danish!".
I remember some telling me ht story behind this once, but it was so complicated I forgot Am pretty sure though, that the Danish does not come from Denmark, but from Vienna (Wien, in Danish)
chalk it up to another Americanism- French Toast, for example, nothing to do with the French or toast for that matter.
So what do the Danish call themselves? I am from America so I am American. They are from Denmark and call themselves wienerbrod....hahahahaha!
They are called wienerbröd in Sweden too. That's because the Danish pastry - despite its name - is said to come from Vienna...
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