In Denmark, there is one date that singles fear more than any other: their 25th birthday.
There, without warning, friends and family await you in the middle of the street, sometimes soaking you with water so the powder sticks better, and then covering you from head to toe with kilos of cinnamon. The tradition originated in the XVI century, with spice merchants. Due to their constant travels and long absences, many reached adulthood without settling down or getting married, causing spices to become curiously linked to being single.
And if covering someone in cinnamon already seems like enough punishment for being single, there are friends who take the tradition even further: some versions include soaking the birthday person beforehand and even adding eggs to make the spice stick completely to their body.
But the best part comes later: if you’re still single at 30, the cinnamon is replaced with black pepper. That is where “pebersvend”, an old Danish term meaning both bachelor and pepper seller, comes from. For women, there is an equivalent, “pebermø”, historically linked to the so-called “pepper maidens”.
And it is no coincidence that this persists: Denmark has one of the highest average marriage ages in Europe, with men only getting married at 34.
So turning 25 and still being single in Denmark doesn’t exactly mean you’re falling behind. Your friends simply found an excellent excuse to cover you from head to toe in cinnamon. 🎂