Picture: Lars Ranek
I have written 10 cookbooks to date and have always dreamed of writing a Christmas book. I have an unconditional, all-consuming love for Christmas. It’s utterly and totally banal. I love the tree, the tacky music, the heavy food, and decorating my house with useless, gaudy objects. I love the family stuff. Because my parents are left-wing hippies from the sixties, I have more or less chosen my own traditions: we used to go to my grandparents’ house or get together with friends in December, but it never had nothing to do with Christmas. We ate onion soup and steak.
After acquiring my own nuclear family I chose what I loved about the festive season, how I wanted to spend it, with whom and how. My Christmas is full of shiny items, comfort food, candles and “hygge”, the Danish word for cosiness. It all starts weeks ahead of the 24th, which is the big day in Denmark: Christmas Eve. We start with dinner around 6pm, then there’s dancing around the tree and the opening of gifts, more eating, and lots of cognac. Then, when most people in Britain are about to tuck into the turkey on the 25th, I am in my pyjamas eating leftovers, reading books or working on my Christmas jigsaw puzzle.
Last Christmas consisted of four advent Sundays of friends, baking, cooking, drinking, presents, and carols. I hosted dinner the Saturday before the 24th and served lobster, foie grass, and Champagne. I did the baking, together with the children of family and friends, and created a gingerbread house. (My own children aren’t children any more: they now turn up late on the afternoon of the 24th, with hangovers. They aren’t that interested in Christmas, but they look forward to the actual dinner: duck, pork roast with crackling, red cabbage, kale salad, sauce and the world’s best pudding – rice a-la-mande with a cherry sauce.)
I always cry during Christmas, not from sorrow, but because the holiday sums up so much for me: love, family and friends. It’s very Love Actually – a favourite film of mine, although I never mention that to any of my British friends.
My own children aren’t children any more: they now turn up late on the afternoon of the 24th, with hangovers
On 3rd January this year, with my house still covered in Christmas decorations, I went to London to see my publisher. The city was cold and damp, and as I sat there, talking about the Northern Lights and outdoor barbeques on the beach with smoked salmon and grilled langoustines, my publisher interrupted me: “Why don’t we do a Christmas book?” I thought it was a great idea and I entered into a long narrative about how I could plan everything during the following Christmas. Again my publisher interrupted: “No, Trine, you have to do it now, in the next seven weeks. It has to come out this year.” I thought she’d gone mental! I couldn’t possibly put together a book in that short time. But this was followed by another thought, one that filled me with utter joy: it meant another seven weeks of Christmas! As I left my publisher’s office I called my husband: “Don’t take the decorations down, we’re doing the whole of Christmas again.”
Picture: Lars Ranek
I worked around the clock with mother and my assistant Anne Sofie. We tried all the recipes, adjusted them, and typed them out in English. We baked and baked and had lots of people over for dinners and lunches.
The biggest challenge we faced was shooting the images to go with the book – we wanted to have an outdoor party, in the snow, but all of a sudden there was no snow, and I didn’t have a special effects budget. We just had to pick a date for the shoot, and hope for the best.
We headed to Sweden, one of my favourite places to go for a weekend with friends, to play in the snow, cook outside over an open fire, and check on the Nisse, the Nordic elf. It’s a tradition to leave him a bowl of porridge, to make sure you get lots of presents for Christmas. To get ahead of schedule, we drove up on Friday night in two cars full of food, wood-logs, decoration and friends. We drove deeper and deeper into the woods on our way to our cottage. Outside, it was minus 17, but there was still no snow. All we could do was prepare for the next day and cook dinner, then head to bed around midnight.
It was so bloody cold that I woke up in the middle of the night and went to add more logs to the fire. I glanced outside, and there was the Christmas miracle: big fat snowflakes falling slowly from the sky. The moment was as perfect as any Christmas fairytale… the world was about to be carpeted white and we’d get all the pictures we needed. I was positive the Nisse had made it happen.
TURN THE PAGE FOR A RECIPE FROM TRINE HAHNEMANN’S NEW BOOK, SCANDINAVIAN CHRISTMAS, PUBLISHED BY QUADRILLE