The Gastronomy Route

Taste the history. Savour the moment. Out here in the west, streams criss-cross the heathland. This is where the potato has its roots, and where you can learn more about Danish food culture. Discover the story of the people who cultivated the heathland – and came to love the potato. Savour Denmark’s national dish. And tuck into some delicious open sandwiches.

The route takes you past a modern museum on an old farm, where you’ll hear a vivid account of rural life in the first half of the 20th century. Carry on. Enjoy traditional Danish pub dishes with a twist – and spend the night at a genuine royal-privileged inn.

Visit Karensminde Museum Farm and discover how a household functioned in an era without fridges or freezers. Learn about storehouses and potato cellars, and see how the soil was kept fertile using the seven-field rotation system. History comes to life in the kitchen garden and the farmhouse.

In the brewery, the museum lifts the veil on beer’s colourful history – from before anyone knew what yeast was. Back then, the brewing process had to be protected from evil forces: strangers might be witches, and people would throw embers at them as they left to ward off evil. Coins or embers were also thrown into the brewing vat to ensure the process succeeded, crosses were carved into the barrels, and little verses were sung to ward off misfortune.

Beneath the floorboards lurked the water sprites – small, evil creatures that remained at rest if one spilled beer. If not, they drank blood. At Karensminde, museum staff have found a calf’s skull beneath the floor – an old method of keeping them at bay.

You can buy the traditional Karensminde Ale in the museum shop. Do so – and try a brew whose robust flavour is created using the farm’s own six-row barley.

Build up your appetite at Randbøl Heath

Traditional Danish food is home-style cooking. These are dishes for working people from a time when you’d work up a sweat and feel your muscles ache after a long day in the fields. If your working day instead involves moving a mouse around, punctuated by trips to the coffee machine, then a brisk walk after lunch will do you good. It’s also a great way to work up an appetite for dinner.

The Danish Society for Nature Conservation has named Randbøl Hede one of the country’s most beautiful landscapes. Standing here, it is easy to imagine that over half of Central and Western Jutland was covered in heathland in the 18th century.

Choose one of the three marked walking routes of 1, 3.5 or 10 km and enjoy the walk around the heath.

Frederik V and his officials enticed around 275 German families to the area with promises of tax exemption, travel expenses, a few household goods, freedom of religion and a couple of steers. Many, however, gave up and returned home, whilst others stayed and succeeded in growing potatoes in the sandy soil.

Land reclamation gained particular momentum following the loss of Schleswig and Holstein in 1864 and became so effective that by around 1950 only about 2% of the heathlands remained. Today, most heathlands are protected – Randbøl Heath was designated a protected area as early as 1932. At the time, it was the largest area of land to be protected in the country.

Catch your dinner at Filskov Fishing Lake

Two large lakes and a smaller one are waiting for your spoons, wobblers, spinners, flies or worms. Here you can fish from dawn until an hour after sunset – every day, all year round. Tickets can be purchased in the service building, where you can also warm up on cold days or use the toilets and showers.

Do also pop into the shop, which is brimming with tackle for every angler.