FOOD CULTURE: How to Hygge
JillWellington - Pixabay
Dear Foodie Fam,
It’s the most hyggelig time of the year!
Want a cozy winter?
here’s how to host a hygge evening (Hyggeaften)!
IN THIS POST
What is Hygge?
Tips on Hosting a Hyggelig Evening
Hyggelig Food to Serve
Hygge in America
hygge
(pronounced “hoo-geh”) noun, adjective, verb, or compound noun
Danish term referring to a national quality.
Derives from a sixteenth-century Norwegian term, hugga (“wellbeing/comfort/console”, related to the English word “hug”).
No direct translation in English
A cozy atmosphere which nurtures individual feelings of contentment, safety and relaxation.
While it is not luxurious or flashy, hygge is indulgent and warm.
Hygge has qualities of humility, patience mindfulness and gratefulness.
FROM THE MOUTHS OF DANES
“Taking pleasure in the presence of gentle, soothing things,” -Helen Russell, “The Year of Living Danishly”
“A state of mindfulness: how to make essential and mundane tasks dignified, joyful, and beautiful, how to live a life connected with loved ones.” -Louisa Thomsen Brits, “Book of Hygge”
“To be in a state of pleasant wellbeing and security with a relaxed frame of mind and an open enjoyment of the immediate situation in all its small pleasures.” -Judith Friedman Hansen
SOME HYGGE WORDS
Hyggeligt: to be in a situation characterized by hygge.
Hyggelig: adjective used to describe a noun. The most flattering compliment to any Danish restaurant, café , home, office… anywhere Danish. (“That cake was hyggelig.”)
Hyggeaften: hygge evening.
Hyggebelysning: hygge lighting.
Hjemmehygge: home hygge.
Hyggekrog: hygge corner.
Julehygge: Christmas hygge.
Hyggebukser: that super cozy but shabby pair of pants you love lounging it at home but won’t wear out.
SURVEYED DANES ASSOCIATE HYGGE WITH…
Hot drinks
Candles
Fireplaces
Christmas
Board Games
Music
Holiday
Sweets and Cake
Cooking
Books
Sundays
Peggychoucair, Pixabay.
TIPS ON HOSTING A HYGGELIG EVENING
Winter is the most hyggelig time of year! Denmark’s winter season is so cold (around 0 °C) and so dark (17 hours of night) that hygge was born to keep up ones’ spirits.
“People spend more time indoors as a result [of Danish winter]…meaning there's greater focus on home entertaining,” Morley College Hygge lecturer Susanne Nilsson told the New Yorker.
OFFER A HUMAN, PERSONAL TOUCH - HAVE IT AT HOME
“Home is… the momentary realization of a warm and protected experience that satisfies the heart,” says Brits.
Hygge should be personal - not imposing. One should feel totally at home without feeling pressured to perform or earn the feeling. What’s more personal than opening one’s safest space to another? Have home hygge (hjemmehygge).
In “The Little Book of Hygge”, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, Copengaen Meik Wiking says, “Seven out of ten Danes say they experience most hygge at home.”
Free-Photos, Pixabay.
HAVE IT WITH PEOPLE YOU ARE CLOSE TO
“When we hygge, we create an environment where we can be lose to one another,“ Brits points out. “At the heart of hygge is an experience of belonging and a sense of connection.”
Hygge is best enjoyed with smaller groups of people. Hygge is about connecting - which is harder to do with a huge number of people. Instead of being urged to rush around to talk to everyone, on a hygge night, one should feel encouraged to savor lingering moments with a few people at a time.
PRO TIP: If your introverts are happy, you’re probably doing hygge right. Shyness or a dislike of people are not traits that define introverts. Introverts are defined by their need to recharge with alone time. They are still humans that love interaction - they just seek deeper connections. This means they drain faster at longer runs or with more people. Hygge is great for introverts because they are not pressured to spend a ton of energy on a ton of people at once. The light pleasantries of hygge is also not as taxing as a super lively party.
StockSnap, Pixabay.
CREATE A SAFE SPACE
“To hygge is to build a sanctuary. The most basic security that we can provide each other is shelter - physical and psychological,” says Brits.
Hygge with those you feel safe with. You can’t feel consoled, comforted or soothed by anyone you need to guard yourself against. Make sure your guests feel safe. It takes sensitivity, thoughtfulness, patience and care to make others feel comforted and completely safe in any situation.
Keep only thoughtful conversations going. Constant conversation isn’t even necessary (think of watching a sunset with a loved one). If conversation is held, stick to calmer topics ! Yep, no politics.
StockSnap, Pixabay.
CREATE NEST-LIKE SPACES AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES
“An essential ingredient to hygge is the boundary that marks a place or delineates a moment… a circle of cushions… a half hour… when we establish [physical and temporal] limits, we can relax and dwell in a place or moment,” says Brits. “ … when we reach a place of shelter, we feel held… A truly hyggelig place or encounter echoes the sheltering of a nest… both open and embracing.”
Create comforting spaces! Think of the very primal needs of every human at rest: warmth, light, a feeling of being “held.”
Offer the most natural light possible (hyyggebelysning)! Danes are obsessed with warm, quality light because they have so little of it during the winter. Candles and fireplaces are Danish favorites!
“[Home] meets our desire to create a cozy, safe environment... like animals returning to the familiar texture of a lair, we relax more easily in an enclosed, softly illuminated place,” says Brits. So create "nesty” areas.… Prop a couple chairs close enough for a nice hushed chat with a friend. Use blankets to cuddle up to your kid. Push a bed against a wall to have a cozy hyggekrog (hygge corner) for yourself and a book! Place sitting areas close to things to lose one’s gaze in (ie: vgnettes, scenic windows, art books, fireplaces ). If your settings instill a quiet moment, it’s hyggelig.
Sabrap59, Pixabay.
BE PRESENT
“To hygge is to create an enclosing circle of warmth by establishing an inclusive , atmosphere with a single point of focus to secure and celebrate the passing moment,” Says Brits.
“Todays moment of hygge will be tomorrow s memory. With that awareness, we give ourselves over to the moment more completely… experiencing a sense of presence and belonging is challenging when were stressed or distracted… hygge isn’t the complete absence of the usual demands of a fully engaged human life, but it is facilitated by a willingness to put down our problems and abandon our forces for a while.”
Try to encourage your guests to leave their cares at home - just for a bit.
Turn off your cellphone and maybe your TV. Be present. Interact only with who and what is in the moment. Act, think and be in your direct space. Offer activities that engage everyone. Board games, puzzles, easy crafts, and photo albums are great for this. Movies might engage many people but not in direct interaction.
Terri C, Pixabay
HYGGELIG FOOD TO SERVE
What food brings you home, keeps you home and keeps you present in the moment?
Rita E, Pixabay
SWEETS
In Denmark, the most savored hyggelig foods are sweets - namely cake and chocolate. Bakeries or artisanal candy shops are super popular with Danes.
“The annual consumption of confectionery in Denmark is 18 pounds per person, making Danes the second only to the Finns as the people who eat more sweets than anyone in the world, twice the European average,” says Wiking.
Take a break from a fast-paced world and from a perfectly healthy diet!
“The danish tendency to happily permit self indulgence in small amounts, eating a few rather than totally abstaining, contributes to the hygge around the table,” says Brits.
IDEAS:
Chocolate.
Cakes.
Sweet breads to enjoy with hot drinks.
Danish pastries (like the Danish, itself!).
Jarmoluk, Pixabay
SLOW FOOD
“The rule of thumb is: the longer a dish takes to cook, the more hyggelig it is,” Say Elias Larsen and Jonny Jackson, authors of “The Joy of Hygge: How to Bring Everyday Pleasure and Danish Coziness into your Life”. “Hygge food is about enjoying the slow process of it, about appreciating the time you spend and the job of preparing something of values it is about r relationship with the meal.”
Wiking suggests even heading to a garden or a market to prolong the cooking process! Slowly cooked food forces cooks to be present - enveloped in the soothing process of cooking. That mindfulness is hyggelig...
IDEAS:
Stews.
Ciders.
Jams: Larsen and Jackson say , “After an hour in the kitchen immersed in stirring, bottling and labeling, the berries are transformed into jars of fruity loveliness.”
I assume: soul food.
Food You Planted / Food Picked at Markets: “Buying food with thought and preparing it with care gives us an opportunity to slow down, to engage all our senses… the food expresses a land or terroir on a plate…connecting us to our local environment,” says Brits. “A food market is a place to see the soul of the city, where people taste and celebrate life together, where hygge and community thrive in conversation that take place around the stalls.”
White77, Pixabay.
TOGETHERNESS
Cookies are my favorite dessert! …But, a sheet of chocolate or a cake is more hyggelig than a cookie because you can share the earlier two. A plate of cookies is also more hyggeligt than a cookie, itself. Shared food enforces togetherness and hygge.
IDEAS:
A big bowl of popcorn.
A meal you bake or cook together.
Fondue! It’s hot! …And tt takes time to prepare the bites to be skewered. It takes time to eat each bite!
Hot Pot Soup.
Gingerbread Houses: “Gingerbread house(s) take time but the whole family will be absorbed for hours,” say Larsen and Jackson.
Roasted Chestnuts: Larsen and Jackson call this “the perfect excuse to cuddle up with your loved ones by the fire!”
Smores.
Shared dishes such as shakshuka.
Potlucks that encourage others to bring food to talk about.
Suju, Pixabay
HOT DRINKS
I love the feeling of a warm drink radiating joy into my ever-cold hands! Wiking says 86% of surveyed Danes most associated hot drinks with hygge (ie: tea, hot coco, mulled wine, coffee). Denmark consumes 8.7 kg of coffee per person per year (the 4th highest consumption in the world).
It’s still common for Danish doctors to suggest their patients take“tea and hygge” to treat a cold. I guess that’s sort of like Americans telling their kids to have chicken soup when they have a cold.
IDEAS:
Hot Chocolate: ”If hygge were a drink, it would be rich and hot chocolate,” say Larsen and Jackson.
Hot Spiced Fruit Punch.
Mulled Wine.
Mulled Cider.
Coffee.
Tea.
SabineVanErp, Pixabay
HOMEMADE, HANDCRAFTED & ARTISINAL FOODS
“[Hyggelig food] feels … informal and relaxed. The new and unused feel distant and self-conscious, lacking the history or relation that comes with time,” says Brits. That means as much as possible: no processed foods!
While Wiking says hyggelig food should be “something sinful”, he emphasizes that it should “not be fancy or extravagant.”
Home cooked, rustic, hand crated food takes time and a personal thoughtfulness to make. Stuff made from scratch and not by machine have that extra ingredient of “love.”
IDEAS
Any Artisanal Food.
Homemade Dumplings.
Homemade Pastries, Cake, Bread.
Handmade pasta and noodles.
Varsbergsrolands, Pixabay.
HYGGE IN AMERICA?
Although they’ve switched places between themselves, the same 10 countries of 156 ranked have sat at the top of the world’s annual“Happiest” lists for the past few years.
The World Happiness Report, 2018 said: “Through a measurement of happiness and well-being called the “Cantril ladder,” Gallup asked nationally representative populations to value their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, with the worst possible life valued at 0 and the best valued at 10.”
“The top countries frequently have high values for all six of the key variables that contribute to overall well-being: income (GDP per capita), healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust (absence of corruption) and generosity… All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.”
Denmark scored 7.555 on the Cantril ladder - securing spot #3 on the World’s 10 Happiest list (Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia).
The US is at #18 where it dropped four places since 2017. Top factors associated with the drop are “a weakened social support networks, government and business corruption and a declining confidence in public institution… obesity, the opioid epidemic and depression.”
Which leads us to the questions of how hygge is linked to happiness. Does hygge cause happiness? Does happiness cause hygge?
Anna Altman of The New Yorker said of hygge: “As a life philosophy, hygge is unabashedly bourgeois, and American readers of a certain stripe will be familiar with its hallmark images—still-lifes of hands cradling a mug, candles lit at dusk on a picnic table, bikes with woven baskets and child safety seats leaning against a colorful brick wall. Artisanal this and homemade that, fetishizing what’s rustic as authentic, what’s simple as sophisticated: urban American sophisticates already know this aesthetic; we’ve aspired to it for a long time.”
Some anthropologists indeed attribute Danish happiness to high standards for equality and living; well-accepted infrastructure in tax, health, education (including university) , welfare systems and workplace culture; one of the smallest wealth gaps in the world… and as Wiking admitted to Elle UK: “After our basic needs are met, more money doesn’t lead to more happiness… Instead, Danes are good at focusing on what brings them a better quality of life.”
While Americans have a less stable lifestyle than Danes, Americans deserve hygge, too.
Hygge isn’t about being Danish. Hygge is truly about humans soothing themselves using humility, gratefulness, mindfulness and togetherness.
Just as Americans should still always strive for a better quality of life, I think Americans should give hygge a try . Hygge might seem nearly impossible to achieve nationally - what with worries constantly playing like polka tunes at the back of our busy minds - but I believe hyggelig moments make this circus of life worth it. Hygge happens best at home and we should concentrate on it one home at a time.
Photodrishti, Pixabay.
Sources:
“The Little Book of Hygge” Meik Wiking
“The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort and Connection” Louisa Tomsen Brits
“The Joy of Hygge: How to Bring Everyday Pleasure and Danish Coziness into Your Life” Elias Larsen and Jonny Jackson
