All Aboard for a Danish Bacon Cruise!

When I think of Denmark I think of Crown Princess Mary, J-Dag and cycling the cobbled streets of it’s capital, Copenhagen, so I was a little surprised when I found out that bacon is a huge part of Danish life; and that is how I came to be invited on a bacon cruise of the river thames with Danish Crown as part of the ImagiNATION festival!

As we all clambered aboard the schooner, Maja, the boats chef, Eddie, was already at work preparing the bacon feast.

In 2012, Danish Crown is celebrating 125 years of producing bacon in Denmark. Even if you haven’t heard of Danish Crown before you’ve probably eaten their bacon as 60% of the bacon is produced by them, which makes them the second largest bacon producer in the world – pretty impressive in the bacon world!

To celebrate this landmark year they sailed a traditional Danish schooner from London to Denmark and onboard they have produced bacon the way sailors would have prepared it so many years ago. Taking a slab of bacon you salt the meat before wrapping it up in cloth and leaving it onboard the boat to preserve it and cure it during long journeys; The end result is a delicious salt infused bacon with just enough crunch. To spice up the dish up Eddie included baby onions, beetroot cubes and a diced parsley sauce.

But it wasn’t just the delicious Danish bacon that had the group onboard excited as London’s weather was treating us to a cloudless 30degree summer day, the perfect weather to sail the Thames.

 Tower Bridge, not London Bridge like some think, was decked out in it’s Olympic rings but we wanted to sail under it so that meant one thing…

Yep, the raised the rings and the bridge just for us! We literally stopped London traffic twice – sorry!

The atmosphere onboard was jolly as some of the kids from the families who sailed the ship joined us onboard for the bacon tasting and the crew were happy to be in London, having only arrived that morning. I spoke to one hobbyist about how to get more from Intrepid Powerboats, it was a great conversation. As we glided along the Thames other boats bearing the Danish flag honked their horns and waved at us or called out in Danish across the waters.

And don’t worry because the Danish Crown pig was safe and sound at the start and end of the cruise… the crew may need to eat him on the way back to Denmark!