Letter writer and gourmet
Due to his abilities as a musician, Weyse was a favourite dinner guest in many bourgeois homes. He took advantage of this to get his teeth into "Østerspaastejer" and "Pillau".
Weyse was a great gourmet, and as a frequent guest in a number of Copenhagen bourgeois homes, he was presented with a rich selection of the finest food culture of the time. As he was also a diligent letter writer, we can, especially in his later years, follow his visits to his friends and get detailed descriptions of the dinner dishes that were put on the table. In this way, his letters bear witness not only to Weyse's personal taste, but also to the gastronomic currents that one could meet in Copenhagen during this period - that is, in the years from the second half of the 1830s to the year of Weyse's death in 1842.
Photo: Hans Peter Hansen
At the professor's table
Let's look at the menu that was served on September 16, 1839, when Weyse was the dinner guest of philosophy professor FC Sibbern. The dinner got these words along the way:
“No first course! but a curious Dish: Pillau that did not taste bad Here, Actonie! Do you have the recipe. Chickens, ducks, lamb and cured ham are put on the fire with water, and the soup is boiled. Then brown a portion of rice groats in the soup, then put it back on the meat together with some chopped and browned onions (from which the fat is removed), let it boil again a little, and serve with small, pointed butter dough cakes. –”
Actonie was a good food interested friend of Weyse, who married his foster son.
Photo: Det Kgl. Bibliotek
An "excellent" soup
A few months later, on November 21, 1839, Weyse visited Admiral Baron Hans Holsten – Weyse also seemed satisfied with this menu:
"excellent: soup, oyster pie, mock turtle, to which lemons and cold punch were presented, ham with macaroni and cabbage with chestnuts, fresh salmon with capers sauce and potatoes, roast venison with compotes and salads, and large marine with cream. 'So leben wir alle Tage!' it's called here in the House."