“I NEED A HORSE!”
“We don’t have horses. Just dogs, cats, birds.”
“THEN GET ME ONE OF THOSE LARGE ENOUGH TO RIDE!”

Those lines, spoken by Thor and a pet store employee in an emergency, tell you everything you need to know about how well Thor understands our world. I can totally picture the Marvel version of Asgard being a place where you can ride a giant cat, like He-Man does, or ride a giant bird, like they do in “Final Fantasy.” And that’s just one of the reasons to love “Thor.”

But more on that later. For now, I’ll tell you about the delicious food that is smørrebrød!

Smørrebrød, which means butter bread, is a staple open-faced sandwich in both Norway and Denmark. It’s made with thin bread, piled up high with lots of toppings and is delicious! The closest English pronunciation of the word is SMOR-uh-bruh.

Cat and I knew we needed to make a powerful smørrebrød, worthy of the name THOR-rebrød! This vegan recipe makes 1 open-faced sandwich and can easily be multiplied.

Ingredients
1 slice of thin, dense bread, rich in grains
2 tablespoons hummus
1-2 servings of the pickled vegetables of your choice
0.25 cups vegan blue cheese, preferably crumbled
1 serving plant-based steak tips
0.25 cups microgreens

Instructions
Start with a slice of bread. (We used a dense, thinly sliced, whole rye bread.)

On top of the bread, slather on the hummus.

Then add a row of pickled veggies. We used both capers and spicy green beans. Pickled cucumbers and/or onions would do just as nicely.

Sprinkle on the crumbled vegan blue cheese. (Blue cheese is big in Norway, and has been for a very long time, because it is awesome.)

Then pile on the steak.

On the very top, add microgreens. We were fortunate enough to find rainbow microgreens, in honor of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge that helps the gods travel across the cosmos in “Thor.”

Enjoy with a drink of your choice and the movie! I had mine with a dark beer, which is very common in Scandinavia.

The Easy Route
This recipe is already pretty easy, but finding the specific ingredients can be hard. Choose substitute ingredients accordingly, as long as there’s plenty of vegan meat and veggies.

Know a restaurant that makes vegan smørrebrød? Share the name in the comments.

The Pairing
The first “Thor” movie is actually a feminist movie. Hear me out. It focuses the viewpoints of two strong and interesting female characters, Dr. Jane Foster played by Natalie Portman and the witty Darcy played by Kat Dennings.

Sif, played by Jaime Alexander, while more one-note than the others, is a very talented fighter and one of the best action effects in the movie is her doing an action attack.

Jane’s decisions drive much of the movie, and I consider it shameful they reduced her role later on. And most of the great comedic one-liners came from Darcy’s mouth: “You know, for a crazy homeless person, he’s pretty cut. … I’m sorry I tased you!”

I know most people loved Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in this film, but to me, Darcy was who made the film shine, and Marvel needs to put her in more movies. If you too want to see more of her, watch “WandaVision,” a spin-off TV series about the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) that features Darcy in several episodes and has more good one-liners.

“Thor” depicts the home world of the gods, Asgard, beautifully, as a shining city of wonders. It actually closely resembles the Asgard in the comics, but with much more gold and less comic book purple. The first scene showing it was wondrous, going upward to see it upside down, then going up through to a right-side-up Asgard – it’s a giant, floating city in space, shaped like a coin with buildings glued to both the heads and tails sides!

Every member of the cast is wonderful. Thor is portrayed with wonderful classic brash, headstrong heroism by Chris Hemsworth. Anthony Hopkins portrays Odin as the king of class.

Hiddleston’s Loki is a major fan favorite, showing the character with complexity. A friend of mine described Loki as a sullen queer kid trying to win his father’s approval. Loki’s storyline of trying to deal with the newfound knowledge that he’s both adopted and a bona fide monster is more compelling than most villain stories.

And you can’t forget Idris Elba, bringing gravitas to the character of Heimdall, watching over the universe from his lonely post, with bright golden eyes.

So, pull out your Time Stone, travel back to the glory days of Marvel Phase One and enjoy “Thor.” Eat, drink, fight and make your ancestors proud!

– Brady Kjersten, First Gentleman of Veg Out

If you decide to make smørrebrød or watch “Thor,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, threads, tweets or TikTok videos: @veg_out_recipes