I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I put the postcode into my sat nav and it directed me to what turned out to be a tractor shed outside Aalborg. Three hours of driving from Esbjerg, two ferries, and one very tense argument with a woman in a petrol station later, I finally found Vadum Strand proper. The mishap? I had spent the last forty minutes of the journey absolutely convinced I had left the oven on at home, only to discover upon arrival that what I had actually done was pack six jars of marmalade and no trousers. Just marmalade. Six jars. I still cannot explain it.

The cottage itself was a proper Danish affair, all wood panelling and that particular Scandinavian talent for making everything look effortlessly tidy. I dumped my luggage, which was roughly eighty percent preserves at this point, and immediately turned my attention to the kitchen. This was to be a week of serious eating, and I had plans. Grand plans. Mostly involving fish.

Limfjorden, you see, is oyster territory. The Limfjordsosters are famous throughout Denmark, and I had every intention of eating my body weight in them. The first morning I marched down to the local harbour at Nykobing Mors, full of confidence, and bought two dozen from a man who looked at me with what I now recognise was profound scepticism. I had never shucked an oyster in my life. Back at the cottage, I managed to embed the knife in my thumb, spray shell fragments across the kitchen, and produce something that resembled seafood gravel more than a delicacy. I ate them anyway, standing at the counter, bleeding slightly into the sink. They were magnificent.

The local pub scene, such as it is, runs on a different rhythm than back home. The Vadum Kro, just up the road, opens when it opens and closes when the regulars feel like going home. I wandered in on my second evening, still smelling faintly of oyster mishap, and was immediately adopted by a table of elderly Danish men who insisted I try their akvavit. I am not entirely sure what happened between eight o'clock and midnight, but I do know I consumed something called "stegt flaesk" which was essentially fried pork belly with parsley sauce, and that I wept slightly while eating it. Not from sadness. From the sheer, uncomplicated perfection of the thing. The landlord, a splendid woman called Mette, kept refilling my glass and saying "skal" in a way that brooked absolutely no argument.

By day three I had established a routine. Mornings meant the bakery in Thisted, twenty minutes up the coast, where I bought rundstykker rolls still warm from the oven and ate them with butter that tasted of actual grass. The local market in Nykobing Mors on Thursdays became my religion. I bought smoked fish from a man who smoked it himself in a shed that looked legally dubious, cheese from a woman who kept goats I am fairly certain were listening to our conversation, and vegetables that still had actual soil on them. I felt very smug about this. Very locavore. Very Danish.

The cooking attempts continued in what I can only describe as a mixed bag. My first attempt at making a proper fish soup, using cod I had bought that morning from the harbour, resulted in something that tasted powerfully of seawater and regret. I had been too proud to ask the fishmonger how to prepare it, and my stubbornness was now edible. I ate it over three meals, grimly, like a penance. My second attempt, after actually speaking to another human being about technique, was transcendent. Cream, dill, proper stock, patience. I ate the entire pot standing at the same counter where I had bled into the oysters, and I felt, momentarily, like I understood something fundamental about Denmark.

The Vadum Kro became my evening home. I learned to arrive with an appetite and no particular schedule. Mette's husband did something magical with local lamb that made me seriously consider never eating beef again. The regulars stopped looking at me with polite confusion and started greeting me by name, or at least by a Danish approximation that sounded like someone clearing their throat. I taught one of them the word "marmalade" in exchange for learning the correct way to pronounce "rodgrod med flode," which I still cannot do without sounding like I am having a medical event.

On my final morning I packed the remaining jars of marmalade, now down to four after some aggressive breakfasting, and made one last trip to the harbour. The oyster man was there, and I bought another two dozen, and this time I shucked them without injury. I ate them on the bench outside the cottage, looking at the fjord, and I thought about how I had come here with six jars of preserves and no trousers, and how I was leaving with a slightly damaged thumb, a new appreciation for fried pork, and the certain knowledge that I would be back. The marmalade, I suspect, will remain a mystery. Some things are not meant to be understood.