This might sounds like a weird thing to blog about, especially if you don't speak Danish, but if you've ever had a "fløde is" from "Brostræde Fløde Is" in Helsingør, Denmark, you understand the need to forever immortalize the experience in this blog. For those of you who are Shakespeare fans, Helsingør is where you find Kronborg's Castle, of Hamlet fame. (In English it's called Elsinore.) And, a "Fløde Is" is simply an ice cream, but not just any ice cream.
Right across the water from Helsingør, Denmark is Helsingborg, Sweden, where I was born. Helsingborg is one of the oldest cities in Sweden and has a medieval fortress that's 600 years old. It became a Swedish city in 1658, when the Danes had to give it up in a treaty. It's Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with Helsingør only 4 km away - a quick ferry ride.
Although we moved to Stockholm when I was very young, my Dad and both sets of grandparents were still in Helsingborg, so I'd go back and visit often. Helsingborg is where I had some of my fondest childhood memories, and therefore where my heart is. My father, aunt and uncles, my grandmother and my sister Jessica all still live there.
Being able to jump on a ferry and be in another country about twenty minutes later is pretty cool, even if that other country is Denmark, a country very similar to Sweden, in both language, history, food etc. You get there by ferry and all the ferries have strange names that end in "la" and that I think are all supposed to be women's names. Regula, Carola, Betula, Ursula, Pendula, Primula. The trip takes about 20 minutes and I've made it many many times. It never gets old, mostly because of the treat that awaits on the other side of the water.
Once on the other side, in Denmark, "Brostræde Fløde Is," which opened in 1922, is on a street called...you guessed it...Brostræde! The short walk from the ferry seemed to last for hours when I was a child, but it's really just a quick two minutes to get there.
"Brostræde Fløde Is" has the best ice cream in the world. It's not the ice cream flavors themselves, although they have delicious vanilla, nougat, chocolate, strawberry and pistachio. It's the whole package that makes this a spectacular ice cream experience, one worth crossing country lines for.
The cones are homemade and as you get close to the ice cream shop, you get that delicious freshly baked cone waft in the air. You pick your flavor, and after they fill your cone with your choice of ice cream, they add fresh whipped cream, warm homemade jam and a flødeboll on top.
It's hard to explain what a flødeboll is...you should really experience it, but it's sort of a wafer bottomed, chocolate dipped ball with delicious sweet sticky cream inside. And they just smush it on top of your cone.
I remember my first ice cream here, and I remember having to hold it in two hands because it was so big and filled to the brim with pure, heavenly sweetness. It wasn't easy to finish one of these as a child, but as long as I got the flødeboll, jam, whipped cream, some of the ice cream and a bit of cone in, I was deliciously satisfied.
My brother Max with his cone...in his fire truck
Also, the ice cream became synonymous with family, fun, travel and adventure as the years went on. Going with my Dad, or my grandmother Celina, Mom, Ulrik, and most recently Max, it's sort of a thing to go to another country just for ice cream, even if it's as close as Denmark. My First Fløde Is was a experience I will always remember, and it's what keeps me taking that ferry back for more.
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