Wow Richard, that sounds wonderful. As you probably know
"Koldtbord" means a table with "cold" food.
In my family we often have Koldtbord because as you say, it's easy when you are serving a crowd.
I'd say that it's essentioal to have at least 2-3 types of bread (like rye, wheat and French/Italian country bread?) We also sometimes use crisp bread, but you could easily skip that. Some crackers in a basket is nice too, because after you are full, there's always a cheese worth tasting smileys/wink.gif
Here we eat mostly open sandwiches, and the thing about koldtbord is that you take a slice of bread and put a ton of "goods" on top wich will make you have to eat it with a knife and fork but it tastes delicious!
You already have the brown sweet cheese and aquavite (I love that!! smileys/smile.gif
This is what my family serves:
Butter is essential. We use regular butter at my house.
Lax and onion rings served with scrabled eggs.
Roast beef and remulade – often served with white asparagus (cold).
Hard boiled eggs – often split in half and decorated with pickles and mayo or anchovy filets and mayo.
Gouda cheese (as Norwegian as they come smileys/wink.gif It is served with red peppers cut into strips.
Also you could serve Gouda with halved green stone free grapes. It actually tasted very good.
Nowadays we also add a couple of other cheeses. Brie and some blue cheese is often served. I ate brie with strawberry halves at a koldtbord in August and it is my new favourite smileys/smile.gif
Also, the Brie is great to eat with the crackers later in the evening.
Shrimps and mayo – often served with wedges of lemon so guests can sprinkle lemon drops on their shrimps.
Sliced turkey breasts with waldorf salad.
Smoked ham with asparagus.
My grandmother often baked a whole trout. She sprinkled pepper and salt on the inside, added some dill and slices of lemon, wrapped it in aluminium foil and baked it in the oven.
Then she kept the trout in the fridge until party time and served it cold with sour cream. It was always popular, and it looks great on a table. Make sure you remove the lemon wedges on the inside before serving, but you can very well decorate it with lemon wedges or rings before serving.
As you see, the main menu consists of fish, meat and cheese, served with mayo, remoulade and pepper root crème. We also often add cole slaw and a basic salad as people are more health conscious now than they were when the first koldtbords were served.
I often decorate meat and fish wit lemon wedges, tomato slices, cucumber slices etcetera.
When I put the food on the table, I put the things that naturally go together in a group, like shrimps and fish, ham and roast beef, cheeses and then eggs.
When you put it out it is a good idea to arrange the table so the guests start by choosing their bread first. Then it will be easier for them not only know what kind of “topping” will taste best with their bread, but also how much they should get.
The fun thing about koldbord is that every host have their personal twist. I’m a huge cheese person, so I often serve more than three cheeses.
I also put out sliced fruits like kiwi, grapes, pine apple oranges and strawberries because it’s nice to nibble to while waiting for your tummy to get ready for the next round smileys/smile.gif
As for drinks, I serve cold beer with the aquavite. Some people will never drink anything but wine, but as we know, it’s their loss smileys/smile.gif
Ok, this was just from the top of my head. Give me a holler if you need more help smileys/smile.gif
