The rain is sluicing the streets of the port town of Frederikshavn when I arrive, en route to the island of Læsø in Jutland, Denmark. I watch the lumbering ferry leave, moments after stepping off my bus from Aalborg. The shops are closing but down a side street I discover a warm, cheerful haven of a pub where a cold pint and a deep bowl of creamy fiskesuppe saves the day. Three hours and a 90-minute crossing later, I arrive at Guest House Læsø. The cheery former youth hostel is a five-minute walk from the ferry and the same from a long sandy beach, and a free bus makes getting around easy. Læsø is famous for langoustine, salt and seaweed and I’m keen to sample all three.

Læsø salt is prized across Scandinavia for its high mineral content thanks to the unusual production method: the salt is extracted from algae-rich groundwater of the vast Rønnerne salt marsh. The first records of Læsø salt are medieval, it’s listed as a gift to the king in 1150, but production stopped in 1652 when the island ran out of trees. For a school project in 1991, local children studied the archaeological finds and tried recreating the process. It was such a success that the industry was reborn. “When you taste Læsø salt, you taste Læsø’s soul,” salt-maker Flemming Larsen tells me.

From the salt works, I take a tractor tour of the Rønnerne with Thomas W Olsen, a past mayor of Læsø who now runs conservation tours. We pick and nibble edible flowers and coastal herbs that thrive in this vast, flat, boggy landscape. Thomas then crouches and digs at a grass mound, revealing yellow meadow ants. “They taste of orange and lemon, and they’re very popular at Noma,” says Thomas. Intrigued, I follow his lead and using a blade of grass catch an ant to try. It bites me, then I bite it, and he’s right: there’s a burst of citrus, and a little guilty aftertaste.

That afternoon I join Rie Ladefoget for a seaweed safari. The enigmatic seaweed expert hoicks me into armpit-high waders and we stride into the Kattegat sea with a plastic tub and scissors.

“Ten years ago, I went to a lecture on Japanese seaweed, and the expert was talking about the best place in Denmark to harvest seaweed. And it was Læsø. I’m so lucky it was Læsø,” says Rie. The shallow rocky coastline and clean, cold water create the ideal environment for seaweed cultivation.

Back on dry land, we roast bladderwrack over the campfire and eat it sprinkled with Læsø salt, and sample Rie’s seaweed products including rhubarb and seaweed jam, and sugar-kelp pesto.
Seaweed has long played an important role in Læsø life. In the 1600s, with the trees decimated by the salt industry, ingenious women on the island discovered that eel grass gathered on the shoreline could be used as a thatch for their homes.

Now Læsø is hoping to gain UNESCO World Heritage status for these distinctive heavily fringed homes, and the thatch that has lasted over 300 years. Thatcher Henning Johansen says, “You need a community to make a seaweed roof” – and the same community has looked after these houses ever since.

The cool, clear waters are also ideal for langoustine, Læsø’s biggest export. In summer, you can buy buckets of them at the harbour and it’s always on the menus here in some form. In August, chefs from across Denmark descend on Læsø to compete for ‘The Golden Claw’ at Jomfruhummerfestival, Læsø’s televised langoustine festival. At Hummerens Hus restaurant, we eat sweet langoustine with seaweed butter, the most delicious combination.

The Limfjord cuts through northern Jutland from the Kattegat to the North Sea where it widens to shelter an archipelago of islands. Driving west, I make my base in the small city of Stroer to explore the food culture of these easily accessible islands.

Small but perfectly formed, the island of Venø is only 280 yards from the mainland; the ferry crossing takes just two minutes, the shortest in Denmark. The island is also home to Denmark’s smallest church. Built around 1536, it’s just over 30ft long, but can squeeze in 50 worshipers, around a third of the island’s population.

Venø is also where the Danish oyster industry was reborn. Kristian Borbjerggaard was only 18 when he started Venø Seafood in 2016, with 660lbs of oysters and a bank loan. The area of the Limfjord around Veno has a wild population of European flat oysters, rounder and flatter than the invasive Pacific oysters. Before Kristian launched his business, 95% of Limfjord oysters were exported to France, the Netherlands and Spain, while Danes mostly ate cheaper oysters imported from France and the Netherlands.

Today, thanks to Venø Seafood, the tide has turned on the export and import market. Kristian supplies around 80% of all the oysters consumed in Denmark and very few are exported; the Danes have discovered they’re too good to share. At Venø Kro, the local restaurant, we work our way through a stacked seafood platter, before the quick ferry back to Stroer.

It’s another quick crossing from the mainland to Fur, an island famous for fossils and excellent beer. At Fur Bryghus, we eat mussels and chips with a flight of Fur beers, overlooking the inner workings of the brewery. When Fur Bryghus opened in 2004, Denmark had 47 breweries; today there are over 320, proving a real enthusiasm for microbrewing and beer experimentation. From the brewhouse carpark, it’s a short walk to view Knudeklint, a steep cliff where it’s possible to see 55 million years of the earth’s history in hundreds of layers of volcanic ash, algae and clay.

Crossing the causeway to the island of Mors from the mainland, I visit the Danish Shellfish Centre, a department of DTU (Technical University of Denmark). Senior research biologist Mette Møller Nielsen explains that the main focus is on improving the health and diversity of the Limfjord ecosystem for the future. My favourite rooms are dedicated to seaweed research, where in colourful bubbling tubes different species of seaweed are cultivated, with scientists dedicated to discovering the optimal growing environments for each species. It’s a very different environment to Rie’s seaweed- strewn rocks, but just as fascinating.

In a trip interspersed with rye open sandwiches, seafood platters and the occasional shot of aquavit, I’ve learned a new appreciation for the simple pleasures of Danish cuisine, and its islands of origin.

To me, each island is like an oyster: briny, fresh and with a distinctive, addictive flavour.

Photos: Destination NORD, Bona Fide Stories/Visit Denmark, Frame & Work/Destination NORD, Kjetil Løite/Destination NORD, Colin Seymour Jr/Destination Limfjorden, Destination Limfjorden, Mette Johnsen/Destination Limfjorden, Daniel Brandt Andersen/Destination Limfjorden.