Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 6: Store Bededag

Apparently, Switzerland isn't the only country into organizing religious observances into one day. Denmark created Store Bededag, or Great Prayer Day, in the late 17th century to consolidate a number of minor Catholic holidays that held on in that country after the Reformation. It then survived a revision of the national calendar of holidays and continues to this day (held on the fourth Friday after Easter).

On the day before the holiday, residents of Copenhagen would walk the city ramparts and eat a traditional bread called varme hveder, which are apparently some sort of wheat roll. According to this page the bread was made the day before the holiday so people could eat them when the bakeries were closed, but the people couldn't wait and ate them on the day they bought them (which based on my experiences with fresh baked bread seems about right). Nowadays people in Copenhagen walk elsewhere (the ramparts being long gone) but apparently still eat the bread.

This page gives a little more about the holiday, not that much really, but it's from the Lutheran church in Denmark, so if nothing else it's about as close to the source of the holiday as you can get.