For some bizarre reason I keep on getting people coming to my site because of abelskivers. I wrote a piece about the little Danish gut-bomblets about a year ago. It was either a piece about how they’re responsible for global warming or the extinction of the dodo bird or something like that. Anyway, Google keeps on sending abelskiver pilgrims my way. Kind of like people making trips to Lourdes to get healed, they come here to learn of lethal Danish baked goods.
Once a year, my church puts on an Abelskiver day in honor of its Danish heritage (aside: I’m not Danish myself, but I appreciate Danish things such as how they dealt with the Nazis during WWII, havarti cheese, and…uh…Danish pastries that aren’t abelskivers). Scads of abelskiver pans appear out of thin air. Batter is mixed up. Stovetops ignite. Those who have too much hairspray in their hair also ignite and run screaming for the nearest sink. The batter gets inserted into the round depressions of the pans. The batter turns into balls of delicate brown pastry hot goodness. The balls get served on plates, sprinkled with powdered sugar, alongside dollops of jam, slices of ham, and wedges of orange. People eat them in vast quantities and then stagger home to expire.
Thus is the circle of life perpetuated in a fairly civilized manner without needing to involve lions messily eating wildebeests at watering holes in the Serengeti.
Contrary to popular belief, abelskivers do not resurrect well in the microwave. Rather, when reheated, they cunningly manifest an enticingly crispy outer layer, while concealing a concrete interior with a density equivalent to a black hole. Once ingested, the hapless ingestee is done for. That is why most abelskiver intervention associations advocate consuming the little skivers only if you are in sound health, have good life insurance (is term better than the other kind? I’m perpetually confused about that), and possess a properly executed will leaving everything to me.
Well, you know, that aebelskiver post of yours sent me hunting through second-hand stores in search of a pan. Just cause I wanted one; I have a thing about cast-iron cookware. Then my sister-in-law found me one and sent it to me for my birthday, and I had to make aebelskivers. And it’s all your fault.
I don’t mind an occasional abelskiver. Perhaps once a year. I’m not sure how the Danes do it. Perhaps that’s the reason why they all went a-viking long ago? Either trying to escape the abelskivers or they were in such bad moods from indigestion that they had to take it out on someone (the rest of Europe).