Gefion fountain and the Little Mermaid

The Gefion fountain is one of the largest monument in Copenhagen. It was created in 1908 on the Southern side of Langelinje (the cruise harbour).

The Gefjun Fountain depicts an ancient Danish legend of how Zealand (or Sjælland, of which Copenhagen is part of) came into existence.

It was said that a long, long time ago, Swedish King Gylfe gave a promise to Gefjun . She had one day and one night to plough as much land as she can manage, and the land that has been plolughed after one day will become hers.

To maximise 'efficiency', she turned her four sons into oxens and put them in front of a great plough.

During that day, Gefjun and her four sons managed to get the earth to create the island of Zealand. Co-incidentally, the land mass and shape of Zealand is similar to the largest lake (Vanern) in Sweden!

We also went to see the Little Mermaid statue that day. The Little Mermaid statue was a present from brewer Carl Jacobsen (son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries) to the city of Copenhagen

 The figure might look peaceful sitting there. However, it has had some pretty bad experience.

In the past 40 years, she has been beheaded, decapitated and vandalised. She has had a bra and knickers painted on her, has been entirely covered in paint on more than one occasion, and has had her right arm and her head cut off. Poor thing!

Interesting intepretation of the theme from Mozart's Symphony No.40

 This person has too much time on his hand. Nevertheless, it is a very original intepretation!

Swedish Meatballs

Our first encounter with the Swedish meatballs was at the IKEA in Greater London. It was very fast food like, but it didn't taste bad at all.

So, when we were in Malmo (Sweden), we took the opportunity to try the real thing on the country's soil.

Köttbullar, Swedish meatballs, are traditionally served with gravy, mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber (!!).

In terms of the actual recipe for the meatballs, there are actually many variants. The recipe was probably a way to use the leftovers, hence the variances.

Generally, the meatballs are made with a mix of beef, pork and/ or veal. The meat is mixed with breadcumbs soaked in milk, finely chopped onions and seasoned with pepper, salt and/or mustard.

The meatballs that we had was probably a mix of beef and pork. It was nicely seasoned. Surprisely, the lingonberry jam and the mashed potatoes go really well with the meatballs. It was a hearty meal and we went straight into sleepy mode after lunch. The meatballs are also much more tender than the ones we had in IKEA. It was really quite delicious.

P.S I guess many of you would know how I feel about cucumbers, so no comments there :P