Some might say that the most Danish piece of furniture is the chair. The Swan Chair, the Egg Chair, the Wishbone chair. They're all international design classics. You can buy a poster with 100 of the top Danish chairs, and if you go to Designmuseum Danmark there is a hall of chairs you can walk through, the display cases stacked three high. Chairs, chairs, everywhere.
But I think the most Danish piece of furniture is the table. It is where traditional Danish cuisine is enjoyed, and sitting around the table, and sitting and sitting and sitting there for hours after a long meal, is where hygge reigns and people are included – or excluded, as the case may be.
A dinner invitation in Denmark
A dinner invitation to someone's home is an honor in Denmark, and people often dress better for it than they might dress for work.
Ladies put on a pretty ruffled blouse, men might wear a suit jacket or at least a shirt with buttons. And everyone arrives precisely on time. There's no such thing as fashionably late in Denmark; that's not the Danish dinner party customs.
For a dinner party like this, the host or hostess will set an elaborate table. There will be cloth napkins in napkin rings, probably some candles, maybe a few carefully chosen flowers as a centerpiece, not so many that you can't see the person on the other side of the table.
And there will be different glasses for different drinks. Water glasses, wine glasses, and often tiny little glasses for toasting with aquavit. Setting a beautiful table is a Danish art form.
Bring out the Royal Copenhagen dishes
Dinner parties are usually a very good time to bring out the Royal Copenhagen dishes.
You can't talk about Danish tables without talking about Royal Copenhagen, that blue and white porcelain first produced in 1775. At the time, porcelain was a real marvel.
It's hard to believe now, we're all so used to looking at antique shops full of unwanted dishes and kitchy porcelain figurines, but at the time, porcelain was the stuff of kings.
If you think Royal Copenhagen porcelain is just for tourists and ladies of a certain age, think again. It is hugely popular among young people. I work part time in a shop and I sell a lot of Royal Copenhagen porcelain to women in their 20s.
Two great business decisions from Royal Copenhagen
That's because of two great business decisions. First of all, Royal Copenhagen, which is now owned by a Finnish company, keeps updating its patterns.
The hand-painted dishes you buy now are not the hand-painted dishes grandma used to have with their little bitty lacy patterns, although you can still buy those if you want them.
But the most popular patterns now are bigger and bolder, still in the same cobalt blue. And you can put them in the dishwasher.
Breakage guarantee means you actually use your dishes
Secondly, in a strategy that should be studied by marketing students, they have a breakage guarantee. If a piece of your fancy porcelain breaks within two years of purchase, you get a new one for free.
This is to encourage people to actually eat off their plates, and use their coffee cups for coffee, instead of stashing them in a glass cupboard where people will look at them and dust them but never use them.
If you're Danish and are welcoming a new colleague to the country, or maybe the international spouse of a Danish friend, a piece of Royal Copenhagen to start their collection is a nice gift.
A team of co-workers did this for my housewarming when I first got here. I still have it.
