I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I packed the car at half five in the morning and realised, somewhere past Hamburg, that I'd left the entire bag of groceries on the kitchen table in Manchester. There we were, two adults and a boot full of beach towels, staring at each other on the autobahn with nothing but a half-eaten packet of wine gums between us. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "this is why we make lists" look. I smiled brightly and said something about "embracing local cuisine," which sounded much more intentional than it was.

The drive to South Jutland is mostly flat and green and oddly calming, once you get past the endless roadworks near the border. We rolled up to Flovt Strand in the late afternoon, the light doing that golden thing it does over Danish farmland, and found our little holiday house tucked among pine trees with a glimpse of the fjord beyond. Proper hygge territory, even if I do find that word slightly overused by people who've never actually been to Denmark.

First things first: food. With no supplies and a rumbling stomach, we drove the ten minutes into Aabenraa, which I'd been told was the nearest proper town for provisions. The Fotex supermarket became our unlikely saviour. I wandered the aisles in that dazed state you get in foreign supermarkets, marvelling at the sheer quantity of herring and the baffling array of remoulade. We bought rye bread, Danish butter that actually tastes of something, some rather excellent smoked salmon, and a tub of something called "leverpostej" that I insisted we try because when in Rome. My partner was less convinced about the liver pate but humoured me, as she has learned to do over fifteen years of my culinary enthusiasms.

Back at the house, I attempted to cook our first meal on the slightly temperamental electric hob. The salmon was straightforward enough, but I managed to set off the smoke alarm with the butter, which I'd underestimated the ferocity of. Danish butter, it turns out, browns with alarming enthusiasm. We ate on the little wooden deck with the pine scent all around us, swatting away the occasional mosquito and feeling terribly pleased with ourselves. The leverpostej sat unopened in the fridge, a silent challenge for another day.

The next morning brought the proper market in Aabenraa, down by the harbour on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I love a Scandinavian market. Everything is so orderly, so politely arranged. We bought fresh asparagus from a man who spoke better English than I do, some local cheese that the vendor described as "quite strong, perhaps for lunch not breakfast," which naturally made me want it immediately, and strawberries that actually tasted of summer rather than refrigerated disappointment. I ate three in the car park before we'd even fastened our seatbelts.

For proper eating out, we found a few gems within easy reach. Cafe Konditoriet in Aabenraa does that classic Danish lunch of smorrebrod, open-faced sandwiches piled with everything from roast beef to pickled herring. I ordered the herring, wanting to be authentic, and spent the first five minutes wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake. The texture is... particular. But with a cold Danish beer and the sun on the harbour, it somehow works. My partner had the fried plaice, which she declared "much more sensible," and I couldn't really argue.

One evening we ventured to a little place called Restaurant Hyttefadet, not far from the water near Aabenraa. Nothing fancy, just good straightforward cooking: pork with crackling, potatoes, that rich brown gravy the Danes do so well. I attempted to order in Danish, which the waitress endured with remarkable patience before switching seamlessly to English. We drank more beer than was strictly necessary and walked back to the car slightly unsteadily, arguing about whether we could justify ice cream from the petrol station. We could. We did. It was excellent.

Back at Flovt Strand, I made several more attempts at proper Danish cooking. The rye bread defeated me initially - it's so dense, so unlike the fluffy stuff I'm used to, and I kept over-toasting it until it resembled roofing material. But I persisted, and by day four I'd mastered the art of the simple palaeg, the toppings layered with what I imagined was authentic Scandinavian restraint. The leverpostej finally emerged from the fridge. I spread it thin, added pickled beetroot and crispy onion, and presented it to my partner with ceremonial gravity. She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and said, "Actually, that's not horrible." High praise, in our household.

The local bakeries became a morning ritual. There's something deeply satisfying about Danish pastries in their actual homeland, still warm from the oven, nothing like the sad, glazed affairs you get in British service stations. We developed favourites: the tebirkes, a sort of poppy seed whirl that leaves you picking black specks from your teeth for hours, and the simple, perfect cinnamon swirl. I'd bring them back to the house with coffee and we'd sit on that wooden deck, watching the light change over the fjord, feeling briefly like people who have their lives completely together.

By the end of the week, our fridge contained the accumulated debris of holiday eating: half a jar of pickled cucumber, some dubious leftover chicken, that rye bread I'd finally learned to respect, and a growing collection of Danish beers we'd meant to drink but kept replacing with new ones to try. I attempted one final grand meal, a sort of improvised fish stew with whatever looked promising at the harbour shop, and it was... acceptable. My partner said it was "definitely food," which I chose to take positively.

We left Flovt Strand with fuller waists and slightly tighter clothes, the car smelling of butter and smoked fish, already arguing about where to stop for lunch on the drive home. I maintain that forgetting those original groceries was the best mistake I ever made. There's something about starting from nothing, about building your little holiday kitchen from unfamiliar ingredients and patient experimentation, that makes the eating more memorable. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Though perhaps next time I'll remember the wine gums at least. You need something for the motorway.