April 22, 2020 • 45 mins
Over last 20 years, there is perhaps no name more important in the world of contemporary dining culture than Chef René Redzepi and his restaurant, Noma. After two decades, many of the same people who helped create the phenomenon are asking: Does the movement need to live to continue or die? On this episode of Point of Origin from Whetstone Magazine, we speak with Jeff Gordinier, author of "HUNGRY: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World."
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Within the close knit world of global gastronomy. Red Zeppy
is a figure whose influence might be compared to that
of David Bowie's and music in the nineteen seventies, or
Steve Jobs in technology in the nineteen eighties, or Beyonce's now.
He is the chef behind Noma, a restaurant in Copenhagen
(00:37):
that has, for those who follow and chronicle these things,
changed the way people think about food. Writers have a
habit of referring to Noma as the best restaurant on
earth that may or may not make Red Deppi, by
hyperbolic extension, the greatest chef alive. D Zeppi was expected
(01:02):
to fall in line with his mentors and cook French classics,
and for a while he did. Soon, though, red Zeppi
had the epiphany that his food should not only be
made with, but entirely shaped by what he found in
the forest, on the beach and in the hands of
local farmers. In practice, this meant that berries ripe for
(01:24):
a mere two weeks a year, implucked by a Swedish
farmer uninterested in selling them, were more luxurious than imported caviar.
He served them in a bowl with minimal adornment. He
made teroar the soil, the climate, and the land that
shaped the flavor of the plant and animal that eats it.
(01:45):
More than jargon, he made it the entire point of
his cuisine. That was an excerpt from the book Hungry, Eating,
Road Tripping, and Risking it All with the Greatest Chef
in the World. It was written by my friend, author
and Esquire Food and Drink editor Jeff Gordineer. Jeff is
(02:10):
one of my favorite food writers. He's really smart, and
he's a really engaged listener. In other words, he's a
great writer because he's a great observer. So when he
decided to turn his attention to Renee red ZEPPI I
knew it would be a worthwhile read. We started today's
episode with that excerpt to provide some context about red
(02:31):
Zeppy and the so called Nordic food movement. If you're
a food person, almost certainly you're aware of his influence,
but if you're not understanding the movement that he helped
create will contextualize a style of food from aesthetic to
ethos that has permeated fine dining kitchens, the minds of
(02:52):
impressionable chefs, and also their Instagram feeds for more than
a decade, and now on the other side of the
laim and influence, noma's alumni are distinguished brigade into themselves,
a gaggle of successful independent restaurateurs and food professionals who
were born of this movement and in some cases, as
(03:13):
with David Zilberg, gone on to lead his own siloed movement, or,
in the case of Matt Orlando, gone on to open
an acclaimed restaurant of their own. We'll hear from both
of these gentlemen today. But whether or not the conversation
of New Nordic is a belabored one isn't really a question. Really,
(03:36):
the question is what do we call the movement that
spawned from the New Nordic food movement Today? On point
of origin, it's the new New Nordic. But before we
(04:00):
we talked about this moniker of New Nordic, I want
to back up and give some context of people who
might not know what it is that we're talking about.
So can you just tell people at the onset of
the so called New Nordic cuisine what it is and
why it was characterized that way? Well, New Nordic Cuisine
(04:22):
when it was first kind of conceptualized. Was a kind
of a mantra or should actually manifesto that a bunch
of chefs from Scandinavia came up with, basically saying that
there were going to stop looking south for inspiration and
they were going to start looking inwards basically what was
around them and why that concept in itself is not
(04:46):
new in the cooking world at that moment in time.
The idea of actually cooking from the ingredients that existed
in Scandinavia was very foreign even to most of the
chefs cookie in Scandinavia at the time. You might hear
the word manifesto tossed around. It's less weighty than it sounds,
(05:08):
but basically it was a living document conceived in two
thousand and four when twelve Nordic chefs got together and
signed a sort of declaration of independence for regional food.
I'm not going to go through all the tenants, but
it basically covers stuff like purity, regionality and seasonality. I mean,
when I first moved to Denmark in two thousand five,
(05:29):
every fine dining restaurant was an Italian or fential restaurant,
and all inspiration was coming from Italy. France and Spain,
and so the idea of having a restaurant dead was
only using ingredients from Scandinavia. People thought we were crazy.
(05:56):
That's Matt Orlando. He is a prominent chef, an owner
of a mass restaurant in Copenhagen and also brought in
and build a brewery which is just a few steps
away from the restaurant. Orlando started at Noma in two
thousand five, just a year after it opened, so in
other words, before it was Noma. Here he is describing
(06:18):
the experimental vibe of the early days were crazy. I
mean I started at Noma about a year after they opened,
so it was very new, very experimental, not only in
the way we were cooking, but just the ideology of
in the direction we were trying to go. It was
a very exciting time. It was we were in uncharged
waters constantly, and at that moment in time when I
(06:40):
got there, people were still kind of making fun of
what was happening at moment that time. I mean to
put it in context, when I went to Denmark in
two thousand five, at the very beginning of this whole
kind of movement, I mean, I felt like I stepped
into a a wonderland ingredients stuff I had never worked before,
(07:02):
stuff stuff that now is quite commonplace because this whole
movement has really put a lot of ingredients that people
had overlooked or thought as not really interesting into the
limelight and now they're quite sought after. I had come
from the background where you know, manipulating ingredients into something
was kind of always the goal, whereas there was so
(07:25):
much respect for the ingredients that we were we were
using at the time at Doma, and it was this
really natural way of cooking, kind of letting the ingredients
guide you as opposed to taking an ingredient and manipulating.
It was just a really big taught to be in
Scandinadia in those those first few years. One of the
(07:46):
things that stuck with me from my talk with Matt
is how the movement transformed not just fine dining but
also the entire food system in Denmark. And so when
I put the mask, I started approaching a lot of
our farmers saying a why can't we grow this or
why can't we grow this? And over the last six
years we have been able to start growing things in
(08:09):
the capacity that we can use them at the restaurant.
We have developed vegetables. An eight plant that's growing in
Scandinavia is going to say it's way different than an
eight plant growing in Italy. You can't grow the same
species of a plant that you can Italy. You have
to find one that's a bit more adapted to the cold,
can handle temperature, swings stuff. So over the last years
(08:31):
we've been finding the particular species of different vegetables that
will thrive in this environment, and we're growing with our
farmers amazing cucumbers, tomatoes, egg plants, all this stuff. And
now that's catching on, and now that's becoming part of
Nordic cuisine, which before, if you ever put a tomato
(08:52):
on the menu, you would have been strung up and
it was crazy and just just ridiculed by people. So
it's evolved a lot in that sense in what ingredients
are acceptable within the cuisine. Now. The chefs that contributed
to this manifesto really made a commitment to not only
(09:12):
finding these ingredients and using them, but more importantly, really
supporting the farmers and helping them to get these ingredients
to the restaurants. And you know, when I look back
on it now and I look at all the there's
so many farms around Copenhagen that up until this massive
(09:32):
restaurant movement and the spotlight of Copenhagen. Up until then,
these farms they were selling to big co ops and
grocery stores, and they were producing amazing vegetables, but they
were producing them on a bigger scale, and the people
that were consuming them didn't really have a whole lot
of respect for what these farms were doing. If you
(09:54):
look at the majority of those farms now, they only
produce for restaurants. And that's how big of a switch
it's been. They only produced for restaurants, and they only
produced for restaurants that really respect the ingredients that they're producing.
So I think it was it was a massive commitment
(10:16):
from this this group of chefs that are beginning to
really embrace this because they, I mean, this was not
the easy way to go about cooking at all. At
what point at Noma in your tenure there did you
realize this restaurant that people were making fun of in
the early days was actually at the cross section of
(10:38):
the most important international food movement that was happening. I
realized that the day I stepped in the door there,
my world was flipped upside down, and I just became
completely obsessed with the process of cooking, in the science
behind it into a molecular level. And somewhere along the line, obviously, Lee,
(11:00):
what's new is destined to become old. And now we
find ourselves, as you said, fourteen years down the line,
and yet we're still talking about New Nordic cuisine, and
other chefs and alumni like yourself have gone on to
make their own names and really deep impressions in the
(11:23):
global restaurant culture as well. So how are you grappling
with the nomenclature of new Nordic cuisine and light of
the fact that we're moving onto our almost second decade
of this. If you look at the religious background of
this part of the world, it's primarily Protestant, and in
(11:44):
the Protestant religion, food is not something to be enjoyed.
Food is a thing of substance. So there has never
been this deep history of food because food has never
been a priority in this region of the world in
regards to enjoyment like it is in France and Spain
and Italy and stuff like that. So this way of
thinking in this region of the world is new, and
(12:06):
so that new part of the title has had a
place at a certain moment in time. And I get
asked often like why how do you think Nordic cuisine
has been able to retain its time at the top
of influential cuisines in the world. And the answer is simple,
(12:26):
is that, unlike other cuisines, because we don't have this
like really like rich food history here, we don't have
rules that we have to follow culturally, and so the
cuisine itself keeps evolving. And if I look at how
(12:46):
people were cooking here in two thousand five, and then
look at how the next generation of chefs are cooking
now in Scandinavia, I mean it's a different thing completely.
And there are things that were important then that aren't
important now, and they were rules set out by this
manifesto that are become obsolete. And this whole next generation
(13:11):
of chefs coming through have really challenged what Nordic cuisine
is because you have so many foreigners coming to this
region of the world to cook, and the majority of
the people running the restaurants in Copenhagen are not from here.
(13:39):
The global influence of the Nordic food movement can't be
overstated because so many chefs themselves are the ones that
are constantly reinforcing its importance and their own lives and
in their own careers and point of origin. Episode two,
we heard Geesely Grimson from Salt Work in Iceland saying
this very thing, but basically the new Nordic food scene,
(14:05):
which is brought to the world by many people in Scandinavia,
but most notably probably renerand Zappi and the team at Noma.
It kind of opened the eyes of many Icelandic chefs
too to be proud of what is surrounding us. So
I mean, I can say I started working in the
restaurant industry about like tann or eleven years ago, and
(14:28):
then people wouldn't be using seaweed that is growing around.
They wouldn't be kind of really they would be more
proud to use kind of black truffles from Italy or
or or these kind of like Italian parmesanos or this
like proshut cut ham and all that, because nobody kind
of was super proud of Icelandic food traditions. And in
(14:53):
episode eleven, we heard chef Michael alec Debi talking about
how it was the power of the story that read
Zeppi and Noma were able to help craft that made
it so influential. In other words, not just amplifying the
influence of the food itself, but also even how we
talk about the food um And what I've learned from
(15:15):
a lot of the chefs are the stories they tell.
They get to tell the story of their cuisine, of
their food, of their people through the art that they
have and through the art that the exhibit. Even chefs
that I didn't work with, like Renewed Zeppi and alex
Atala and Massimos Botura, how their approach towards their cuisine
(15:40):
have changed the world's perception. For our Reneed, no one
looked at Scandinavian food as you know, anything more than
potatoes and you know, carrots, And now the Northern cuisine
is being revered and it's because of that representation and
the stories that are told behind the the people and
(16:00):
the tradition that was Matt Orlando, chef and owner at
a mass and brought in and build brewery in Copenhagen.
(16:51):
Welcome back to point of origin. Today. Our special guest
is Chef David Zilberg, who is the fermentation guru at
Noma or more formally known as the Director of Fermentation
at NOMA. He is also the author of the essential
book on fermentation called The Nope But Guide to Fermentation,
(17:14):
and we are pleased to have him join us today. David,
thank you so much for joining us. On point of origin.
Thank you for having me of course here. Of course,
of course I ended up in Copenhagen because I was fascinated,
like I think many people are in the world of
food about restaurant Noma. So I shot off a little
to Denmark and they snatched me up. That was in
(17:35):
two thousand and four team in the spring. Yeah, I
worked in the main kitchen for about a year and
that was very much a shock coming from my little
provincial country of Canada to the big leagues of you know,
European mission Star fifty best less restaurants. Let's stuck with
him and get my head down and tried to work hard.
And about a year into my time, they're, um, you know,
(17:55):
Rene and Dan Drew studio head chefs set me down
and said, you know, times for me and they wanted
me ton't start working at From addition that that's kind
of a semi position. When David Zilber reached out to
Noma in two thousand fourteen, Noma was already very much
a thing. Part of it's and enduring influence then and
(18:18):
even now has been the team's ability to attract and
retain talent. Like Matt Orlando said, most of the folks
in Noma's kitchen aren't from Denmark. That can be credited
in part to red Zeppy's investment in R and D.
After a year and a half at Noma, Silber was
promoted and now holds the position of Director of Fermentation,
(18:41):
which is one of the most distinguished in the field.
I've always been a really nerdy guy, you know, like
I never went to university. I barely scraped through high school.
But in my own private life, you know, I always
have this thirst phenology, lay too much time on Wikipedia
or you know, just picking up science non fictions up
(19:01):
on my own. And that's that was for a long
time kind of my form of relaxation outside of the
kitchen and my form of entertainment. And by the time
I got to know my age, what was it was
like twenty seven and twenty eight, Like there's been enough
kind of under my belt by that point in terms
of my own private reading that I just had the
capacity to explain a lot of things that maybe other
(19:23):
books in the kitchen might have taken for granted. You know,
one one kind of token example, one day, the bone
marrow wasn't doing so well, and then I had to explain, oh, well,
you know, the fat inside marrow is an interlinked layer
of cells to contain water. So if you de hydrated
slightly before service, he moved that surface water and trap
sugar molecules which will help a caramelize that. Yeah, with
(19:45):
within a year, you know, I was thankful that I
started doing something else and I had never expected that.
That's not why I arrived at Normal, but it was
kind of like one of these life changing moments where
you're like, oh, this could lead to some really amazing
opportunities for me. But I'd also like to say that,
you know, like me ending up in the formentation, that
doesn't necessarily light in to the top of this restaurants. Like,
(20:06):
there's a lot of people that make this place work,
and you know, there's amazing cooks like Meta in June
and the Test Kitchen and have the creative talent, but
I feel I lack in some ways and in terms
of their decisiveness or the ability to explore flavors in
this world, and their creativity is just you know, they're
they're kind of victual leading forces in that kitchen. You know,
(20:27):
maybe conceptually, I'm better suited to tinkering with fermentation and
coming up with ingredients or building blocks, But in this restaurant,
you know, there's no there's no one cook at the
top of the mountain. Like between our head chef and
our ingredient manager and the chefs, it takes a village.
Noma has expanded its influence by attracting talents from outside
of the food world, like anthropologist, molecular chemist, and agricultural
(20:52):
scientists who work in its Nordic Food Lab. So when
you hear David Silber talk about the environment at Noma
from his prayer as the now director of the fermentation Lab,
it was a really big deal for him to get
that promotion. Do you think Noma Do you think of
it as a restaurant? It is a restaurant, I mean,
(21:13):
that's how I had to define it. I would say
that it is. But it's very rare that I walk
into a restaurant and also call it an institution. You know,
and that's kind of also how we think about it.
Um when you moved into a role that was focused
on fermentation, this is happening. I mean you say, maybe
(21:34):
four or five years ago, concurrently with a moment nationally
or globally rather where fermentation was coming not really back
into fashion, but was being centered on restaurant menus. Can
can you say or do you? Can you theorize maybe
why over the last couple of years it seems like
(21:55):
the focus on fermentation has really been centered in rest
rants all over the world. But I really do think
it's less of the trend and more than understanding, Like
there is a deep comprehension that these things aren't out
of reach for people, and as they explore them for themselves,
they realize that it's powerful. And I don't think you
can never take that power away. That's not something you
(22:15):
get bored of. Once you make it, you have it
on hanging because the work it for a little more. So. Yeah,
because once you can focus on what's within your boundaries,
you can then be for you to kind of look
outside and then say, Okay, now I can take an
inspiration other spaces and then translate that to where I
am and make it make sense for me. And that's
exactly what we've done with the commentation for them come
(22:37):
to get go from those first investigations on the household,
but looking more the food love, these were a bunch
of very curious and passion of cooks that we're just
looking at blood for inspiration and trying to translate that
to the terrore of of of the current locale, and
in doing so you end up with a deep understanding.
You're not just learning by roads. It takes up the
found taking apart and understanding of the intermach nations to
(22:59):
build something back up that is completely new. So it's
definitely exploded and expanded, and the amount of restaurants that
would definitely fall under that cachet has grown many times over,
but it's still there. And even though even at Noma,
you know we might cook with all of the allier
there get our see me from Japan and Troubles from
Australia and kind of trade our footsteps to our travels,
it doesn't feel like we're any less about celebrating the
(23:22):
region that we're in or coming up the flavors that
make for a distinct cuisine. So I think it's a
valid now as it ever worked. But it's also mature,
you know, and it's grown beyond that kind of boyish
naive to tay about making your mark on the world
that maybe got it to come about in the first place,
and I doesn't think it's kind of aged into a
(23:44):
really amazing place where you have all these amazing restaurants
with Emily as well as producing you know, whole generations
of talent. I'm curious how you know, stories like yours
of chefs coming from different parts of the world for
the Noma experience and then you know, in many cases
(24:04):
moving on to start their own restaurants or even in
the cases where they stay. How much has the worldliness
of the staff over the years impacted the cuisine at
Noma UM in Copenhagen as well? The influence of of
like a multinational kitchener's impacted incredibly profoundly, in no offense
(24:25):
to the Dames. But back in Canada, I mean, we
have First Nations people, we have Aboriginals that this in Denmark,
you know, this is where white people come from it,
so it's a fairly comogenous society by its nature. But
as Noma kept growing, I mean the amount of Dames
that represented the kitchen kind of dwindled as it attracted
world attention, and it became an attractor for um, you know,
(24:49):
top shops around the world, kind of sipening off the
crumvilla crump of that crop. So when it comes to
(25:24):
New Nordic food, we talk a lot about farms and
ingredients and sourcing, and even though conceptually we understand these things,
it all feels and sounds kind of nebulous. So we
wanted to talk to a chef who was influenced by
the New Nordic Food movement, not necessarily from having worked
in the kitchens at Noma or like restaurants in Copenhagen,
(25:46):
but having observed the style of cooking from Afar and
let it infuse their own. So we talked to Chef
Jeremy Charles, who is considered to be one of the
very best chefs in Canada. And we're talking to Chef
Charles about a cod and I think in the way
that we discussed the utilization of the fish, you will
(26:09):
hear with a lot more specificity the philosophical in gastronomical
role of New Nordic food in his own So while Obviously,
Noma did not invent utilizing local fish and its entirety.
There is something about the surrounding ideology presented by Chef
(26:29):
Charles through this Michelin Star lens which I think will
help people understand how the new Nordic style has really
rippled outward. So here is Chef Jeremy Charles. We're here
at Rifflin Hitch Lodge, an incredible fishing lodge in a
(26:50):
state in Labrador on the Eagle River, which I think
you can hear in the background, and I'm here with
one of Canada's most owned and celebrated chefs, Jeremy Charles. Today. Hey,
how's it going. Thanks for hanging out, Thanks for having me.
I mean, what a beautiful spot to be. I grew
up in St. John's, which is the capital of Newfoundland
(27:14):
and Labrador. I spent a lot of my summers in
a small fishing village with my grandmother and grandfather. Yeah,
it was a place where they lived off the land.
You know, they grew their gardens, they ate from the
land and see picked berries and you know, as a kid,
I spent a lot of time down on the wharf
cutting out cod tongues and really being exposed to the
(27:37):
traditional ways and roots of Newfouland, you know. And I
spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandparents,
cooking a lot of traditional meals. You know, we grew
out picking berries and come back and make a beautiful pie.
And and again going down to the wharf and you know,
bringing up to cod fish and splitting them with my
grandfather and on a rock in front of the house,
(27:57):
and using all the parts of the cod fish. You know,
it wasn't just the boneless, skinless loins. It was you know,
busting down the cod's head and taking out the cod
tongues and the napes and just using the whole fish
and celebrating the whole animal. You know, all the remains
went back into the garden to help for lots of gardens.
There was nothing that that went to waste. And um,
(28:19):
you know, they were they were eating organically before the
word organic really meant anything to people. You know, that
generation of people. My grandmother's ninety two right now, and
she's still making bread and buns and it's uh, it's
so inspiring. And and it was that was just the
way of life. That's how people lived in New foland
can you tell us a bit about what napes are
(28:42):
for the listeners who might not be familiar. Yeah, the
cod napes, well, our way of saying the uh, the
fins the collar of the codfish, and we cut those
out and they're almost like the chicken wing of the codfish.
Are so beautiful and so much gelatin and they're just
something you pick up in your hands and you get
tucked into it. You know. It's uh, it's uh, yeah,
(29:03):
it's it's probably the best way to describe it. And
I understand it's one of your favorite parts of the cod. Yeah.
I mean a lot of people again that market and stuff,
we're just buying bonless, skinless cod and you see people
bone out fish and you know they take off the
loins and the whole fish goes over the side or
in the bin. It's just like, my god, you know,
there's so much to a cod fish more than just
(29:27):
just the loins. So when we're breaking down cod where yeah,
you use the napes and the tongues and the cheeks,
the heads, and we use the sounds which are the
sound ballast of the fish and um, yeah, it's you
know for for New Flann that's the whole reason why
people can a new flanners for the cod fish. You know,
when when you say the word fish, people just assume
(29:48):
you're talking about codfish, and cod is king and always
will be, you know. Yeah, Can you talk a little
bit about the role that cod played over the last
few centuries here end up until the nineteen nineties UM
when the industry began to decline here, cod fish was
everything to New Fland and most a lot of parts
(30:08):
of Labrador. I mean, the island was full of fishing
communities all across the island and it sustained generations of people.
And you know, we traded salt cod for molasses and
rum and salt, and you know, we shipped caught all
around the world Spain, Portugal, you know, down the islands, Jamaica,
and it was such an important resource and such an
(30:33):
important part of our obviously culture and it's kind of
ingrained in who we are. And the whole idea is
to celebrate again all the wild, beautiful ingredients from land.
And see, we're so fortunate here in New Fland were
able to serve wild game moose and rabbits and partridge
and grouse and some of the most beautiful seafood in
the world, scallops and sea urchin and obviously codfish and
(30:57):
snow crab, lobster, whelks, razor clams. Uh, you know, the
list goes on. But you know, for many years, a
lot of those products were just like frozen or just
shipped out of the province to Japan, New York, Boston,
you know, China and Russia, and you know sea urchin
(31:18):
or welks or razor clams. You know, those were things
that I didn't see at my grandmother's table, you know,
and people really didn't acknowledge those ingredients. And I was like,
my god, you know, we can live in these big cities,
and seeing how prize these ingredients were to so many people,
it was like, we have all this beautiful, beautiful things
back home that are not being celebrated put on plates.
(31:41):
So I was really excited when I did return home
to start to showcases ingredients that were really kind of yeah,
not part of the culture, not part of the diet,
you know. And m yeah, that was really really exciting.
For sure. You know that you're only as good as
your products, and when you have beautiful products, you just
try to keep it simple and showcase those things. But
(32:02):
those relationships are a big part of it. And it's
not just ordering off an order sheet and you know, cooking,
it's all about what goes into sourcing these ingredients and things.
We are able to tell you a story actually where
the food is actually coming from, you know, and how
it's been harvested, and and what neck of the woods
is coming from and almost down to the individual. Yeah,
(32:22):
and that's all comes back to creating a sense of place.
And and uh, for many years, I don't think New
Flan really had a food identity, shall we say, you know,
we kind of got lost in lost in space. I
don't know. We're an island in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean, way out on the end of Canada. You know.
For for many years we're forgotten about. And even when
(32:44):
people talked about New Flan, they talked about fish and
chips and deep fried food. And you know, everybody here
didn't want any traditional foods. They wanted everything else outside
of the province, you know. And so I think it
was about ten fifteen years ago maybe things started to change,
you know. I think, you know, myself and Jeremy and
(33:05):
a few other people were a big part of that
of bringing back being proud of ingredients around us and
proud of the food and really again going back to
our roots, you know, and back to our roots sellers
and growing things in our gardens and showing people that
it's okay to to live off the land. It's okay
to celebrate the things around you. It doesn't have to
(33:25):
come from outside the province. You know. For many years
people always wanted stuff from outside, and it was like
nobody focused on all the beautiful things we had. And
I think that comes back to you know, education too,
especially with all the while edibles here, all the beautiful
Chantrell's and all the wonderful things that are in the
woods that are just at our fingertips that people had
(33:46):
no idea about, you know, not many anyhow. But yeah,
it's been it's been a great time to be part
of definitely food movement. You know. It's a wonderful culture
here and it's a special place and I'm super proud
to be to be home and to be able to
come to places like this and spend time with friends
and the fish and hunting again, live off the land
(34:10):
and be a family. Our last guest today, chef Boback
is one of the trailblazers of the Copenhagen food scene.
He first made his name at restaurant Palace Gin, where
(34:32):
he won a Michelin star, and in two thousand and
eleven he opened up his restaurant Geist, where he's still
the executive chef. Today we're picking up with him speculating
on how Danish culture might have been the key to
understanding the formation of the Nordic food movement. Here's Chef Bobeck.
(34:56):
If you're born in Italy or Spain, in or France,
which is the big countries, and in our part of
the world, our continent, I bet that they're they're under
the spell of the mama culture. That your mama would
look at them and say, my boy, don't you change
(35:16):
the thing. You're beautiful, you're strong, you have the right genes.
I bet it's the same here in America. But when
you're born in Denmark, your mother looks at you with straight,
honest eyes, very clear. She says, if you want to
be anything, you gotta learn You gotta learn language. Because
(35:36):
you live in a country that only has six million people.
No one understands your tongue. So if you want to
accomplish anything, you've gotta open up your eyes. That's what
you're being taught. Long story short. I think what happened
was we were a group of maybe twenty chefs around
(35:58):
that time. And this is because there's a group of
chefs who are able to work across Europe without being
paid and then eventually bring those skills from in some
cases three Michelin star restaurants back to Copenhagen. And so
now you have kind of the makings of a new
(36:22):
food culture because you have a group of highly skilled
and trained chefs who have just arrived back to Copenhagen
in the early two thousands. Is that right? It might
sound ridiculous no pay, but it was very simple. Otherwise
you don't get inside the door. So how did you survive?
(36:45):
You work at a cafe next there, you do some shifts,
you do a job as a dishwasher. You get enough
to run. The ironic positive side of it is you're
working six days a week. You don't need clothes, I
mean one set of clothes last week. You don't you
don't need food because you're eating at the restaurant. You
(37:05):
talk about Nordic and and the creation and the birth
of it, the romantic story that I try and and
and the way I try and explain to this it's
a little bit like a cat that gets lured up
in the tree. It's not concerned about how it's going
to get down again. It's just going forward. There's something
(37:30):
that's more interesting up in that tree, and that's why
it goes up there. Then there's no doubt about it
that who everyone knows at Noma was simply just a
better translator of everything. He by far was better man
(37:51):
at at setting up an organization around the whole thing
and putting words to it and executing it. And boy
or boy, it has he changed it. And I couldn't
be more proud of it. And it's it's as simple
as that. You know, there's this line I always used,
how can you miss something if you don't know it exists?
(38:12):
And there made it exist, so you would create it.
Danish food. The Nordic style approach has the same strength
in architecture as well. It's a very clean lines, very understandable,
(38:34):
almost naked, and when you work in such a visual
and flavorful, clear vision, it becomes much easier to understand
the language. And I think it has many similarities to
Japanese lifestyle and cooking, and maybe the world was just
(38:58):
begging for some one to open their eyes and it
happened to be him, all us that group of people.
And but there always need to be a face on
something and where you all talking to each other about
a collective vision for the food that you wanted to cook.
(39:23):
I think we talked about it, but not in the
sense that you would hope that we would choke about it.
We were friends. But what you all have collectively done
has been transformative, and that people are thinking about cuisine
as something that is closely related to identity and the
(39:46):
amount of pride and resourcefulness that Renee was able to
help articulate as a very visible and charismatic leader really
inspired a lot of chefs around the world world and
in turn it brought a lot of people to Copenhagen
and really has given Copenhagen this reputation. And your restaurant
(40:09):
is a big part of that as well. And so
I wonder now that this thing that we didn't know
we wanted to exist, it existed, it has thrived in
such a way that now everyone is trying to create
their own equivalents for their culture. What do you think
(40:30):
about this movement that you helped build, and what do
you think about its utility in the future, if at all,
if it needs to have a future, given how far
it's come in the last let's say ten or fifteen years.
Let me give an analogy of one of the big
staples of American American football, New England Patriots. Either people
(40:57):
hate them or they loved them. They have a guy,
a quarterback, com Tom Brady, and a genius also, Build Bilichick.
You know, do your job. But the thing is when
the team starts out, they have to figure out how
to work, how to play, how to make this happen.
(41:18):
And then after that all the other teams start studying them.
What are their moves, what are their secrets? So what
keeps them in the game for so long is their
self reflection of acknowledging we need to move, We need
to be in a movement as well. We can't be static,
(41:41):
we can't celebrate our successes. And that's I think one
of the keystones to the survival of any great cuisine
is that it's in movement, that it's constantly evolving. When
you live inside the fourst you just see the trees.
(42:02):
You don't see the forest and you're just doing what
you do. You guys, you see the forest because you're
looking from a distance. As as long as we just
keep doing what it is we're doing, we will become relevant.
And if not, so be it. It's not important. What's
(42:22):
important is one of my life mantrass is it's easier
to remember the truth than the lie. And and if
you live a life like that, it's just so easy
because you just gotta do what you do. You don't
have to be concerned. I think life gets complicated when
(42:43):
you start doing what you think you should be doing
because other people are telling you you should be doing this.
So how should we regard the most influential international food
movement of the last decade as something that happened or
(43:07):
is happening. What's unequivocally true is that Scandinavia is now
very much on the map alongside France, Spain and Italy
as the most regarded cuisines in Europe and in fact
among the very best in the world. The New Nordic
movement spawned a very real and very robust hospitality industry,
(43:29):
gastro tourism sector, food artisans and innumerable small farmers, the
movement that we used to call New Nordic. Now it's
just Nordic, and I think more than anything that pretty
much says it all. I'd like to thank our guest
(43:54):
today Matt Orlando of a mass and brought In and Build,
David Dilbert, fermentation director at NOMA, and Bobeck of Geist
All in Copenhagen. Thanks to Chef Jeremy Charles of Raymonds
and the Merchant Havever in St. John's Newfoundland Special. Thanks
to Simon Lavender who created the music featured in today's
(44:16):
episode special. Thanks to my business partner who makes all
things possible at Whetstone are co founder Melissa she Thanks mel.
Thank you to Selene Glazier, who is our lead producer.
To Cat Hong, our editor, to Havin Obasa Lassa and
Quentin lebou our production interns. To our friends at iHeart
(44:39):
Radio for helping us bring you this podcast. To Gabrielle Collins,
our supervising producer, engineer J. J. Pauseway and executive producer
Christopher Hasiotis. I'm your host, the origin Forager Steven Saderfield,
and we will be back here next week with more
from Whetstone Magazine's point of origin podcast, What w
Within the close knit world of global gastronomy. Red Zeppy
is a figure whose influence might be compared to that
of David Bowie's and music in the nineteen seventies, or
Steve Jobs in technology in the nineteen eighties, or Beyonce's now.
He is the chef behind Noma, a restaurant in Copenhagen
(00:37):
that has, for those who follow and chronicle these things,
changed the way people think about food. Writers have a
habit of referring to Noma as the best restaurant on
earth that may or may not make Red Deppi, by
hyperbolic extension, the greatest chef alive. D Zeppi was expected
(01:02):
to fall in line with his mentors and cook French classics,
and for a while he did. Soon, though, red Zeppi
had the epiphany that his food should not only be
made with, but entirely shaped by what he found in
the forest, on the beach and in the hands of
local farmers. In practice, this meant that berries ripe for
(01:24):
a mere two weeks a year, implucked by a Swedish
farmer uninterested in selling them, were more luxurious than imported caviar.
He served them in a bowl with minimal adornment. He
made teroar the soil, the climate, and the land that
shaped the flavor of the plant and animal that eats it.
(01:45):
More than jargon, he made it the entire point of
his cuisine. That was an excerpt from the book Hungry, Eating,
Road Tripping, and Risking it All with the Greatest Chef
in the World. It was written by my friend, author
and Esquire Food and Drink editor Jeff Gordineer. Jeff is
(02:10):
one of my favorite food writers. He's really smart, and
he's a really engaged listener. In other words, he's a
great writer because he's a great observer. So when he
decided to turn his attention to Renee red ZEPPI I
knew it would be a worthwhile read. We started today's
episode with that excerpt to provide some context about red
(02:31):
Zeppy and the so called Nordic food movement. If you're
a food person, almost certainly you're aware of his influence,
but if you're not understanding the movement that he helped
create will contextualize a style of food from aesthetic to
ethos that has permeated fine dining kitchens, the minds of
(02:52):
impressionable chefs, and also their Instagram feeds for more than
a decade, and now on the other side of the
laim and influence, noma's alumni are distinguished brigade into themselves,
a gaggle of successful independent restaurateurs and food professionals who
were born of this movement and in some cases, as
(03:13):
with David Zilberg, gone on to lead his own siloed movement, or,
in the case of Matt Orlando, gone on to open
an acclaimed restaurant of their own. We'll hear from both
of these gentlemen today. But whether or not the conversation
of New Nordic is a belabored one isn't really a question. Really,
(03:36):
the question is what do we call the movement that
spawned from the New Nordic food movement Today? On point
of origin, it's the new New Nordic. But before we
(04:00):
we talked about this moniker of New Nordic, I want
to back up and give some context of people who
might not know what it is that we're talking about.
So can you just tell people at the onset of
the so called New Nordic cuisine what it is and
why it was characterized that way? Well, New Nordic Cuisine
(04:22):
when it was first kind of conceptualized. Was a kind
of a mantra or should actually manifesto that a bunch
of chefs from Scandinavia came up with, basically saying that
there were going to stop looking south for inspiration and
they were going to start looking inwards basically what was
around them and why that concept in itself is not
(04:46):
new in the cooking world at that moment in time.
The idea of actually cooking from the ingredients that existed
in Scandinavia was very foreign even to most of the
chefs cookie in Scandinavia at the time. You might hear
the word manifesto tossed around. It's less weighty than it sounds,
(05:08):
but basically it was a living document conceived in two
thousand and four when twelve Nordic chefs got together and
signed a sort of declaration of independence for regional food.
I'm not going to go through all the tenants, but
it basically covers stuff like purity, regionality and seasonality. I mean,
when I first moved to Denmark in two thousand five,
(05:29):
every fine dining restaurant was an Italian or fential restaurant,
and all inspiration was coming from Italy. France and Spain,
and so the idea of having a restaurant dead was
only using ingredients from Scandinavia. People thought we were crazy.
(05:56):
That's Matt Orlando. He is a prominent chef, an owner
of a mass restaurant in Copenhagen and also brought in
and build a brewery which is just a few steps
away from the restaurant. Orlando started at Noma in two
thousand five, just a year after it opened, so in
other words, before it was Noma. Here he is describing
(06:18):
the experimental vibe of the early days were crazy. I
mean I started at Noma about a year after they opened,
so it was very new, very experimental, not only in
the way we were cooking, but just the ideology of
in the direction we were trying to go. It was
a very exciting time. It was we were in uncharged
waters constantly, and at that moment in time when I
(06:40):
got there, people were still kind of making fun of
what was happening at moment that time. I mean to
put it in context, when I went to Denmark in
two thousand five, at the very beginning of this whole
kind of movement, I mean, I felt like I stepped
into a a wonderland ingredients stuff I had never worked before,
(07:02):
stuff stuff that now is quite commonplace because this whole
movement has really put a lot of ingredients that people
had overlooked or thought as not really interesting into the
limelight and now they're quite sought after. I had come
from the background where you know, manipulating ingredients into something
was kind of always the goal, whereas there was so
(07:25):
much respect for the ingredients that we were we were
using at the time at Doma, and it was this
really natural way of cooking, kind of letting the ingredients
guide you as opposed to taking an ingredient and manipulating.
It was just a really big taught to be in
Scandinadia in those those first few years. One of the
(07:46):
things that stuck with me from my talk with Matt
is how the movement transformed not just fine dining but
also the entire food system in Denmark. And so when
I put the mask, I started approaching a lot of
our farmers saying a why can't we grow this or
why can't we grow this? And over the last six
years we have been able to start growing things in
(08:09):
the capacity that we can use them at the restaurant.
We have developed vegetables. An eight plant that's growing in
Scandinavia is going to say it's way different than an
eight plant growing in Italy. You can't grow the same
species of a plant that you can Italy. You have
to find one that's a bit more adapted to the cold,
can handle temperature, swings stuff. So over the last years
(08:31):
we've been finding the particular species of different vegetables that
will thrive in this environment, and we're growing with our
farmers amazing cucumbers, tomatoes, egg plants, all this stuff. And
now that's catching on, and now that's becoming part of
Nordic cuisine, which before, if you ever put a tomato
(08:52):
on the menu, you would have been strung up and
it was crazy and just just ridiculed by people. So
it's evolved a lot in that sense in what ingredients
are acceptable within the cuisine. Now. The chefs that contributed
to this manifesto really made a commitment to not only
(09:12):
finding these ingredients and using them, but more importantly, really
supporting the farmers and helping them to get these ingredients
to the restaurants. And you know, when I look back
on it now and I look at all the there's
so many farms around Copenhagen that up until this massive
(09:32):
restaurant movement and the spotlight of Copenhagen. Up until then,
these farms they were selling to big co ops and
grocery stores, and they were producing amazing vegetables, but they
were producing them on a bigger scale, and the people
that were consuming them didn't really have a whole lot
of respect for what these farms were doing. If you
(09:54):
look at the majority of those farms now, they only
produce for restaurants. And that's how big of a switch
it's been. They only produced for restaurants, and they only
produced for restaurants that really respect the ingredients that they're producing.
So I think it was it was a massive commitment
(10:16):
from this this group of chefs that are beginning to
really embrace this because they, I mean, this was not
the easy way to go about cooking at all. At
what point at Noma in your tenure there did you
realize this restaurant that people were making fun of in
the early days was actually at the cross section of
(10:38):
the most important international food movement that was happening. I
realized that the day I stepped in the door there,
my world was flipped upside down, and I just became
completely obsessed with the process of cooking, in the science
behind it into a molecular level. And somewhere along the line, obviously, Lee,
(11:00):
what's new is destined to become old. And now we
find ourselves, as you said, fourteen years down the line,
and yet we're still talking about New Nordic cuisine, and
other chefs and alumni like yourself have gone on to
make their own names and really deep impressions in the
(11:23):
global restaurant culture as well. So how are you grappling
with the nomenclature of new Nordic cuisine and light of
the fact that we're moving onto our almost second decade
of this. If you look at the religious background of
this part of the world, it's primarily Protestant, and in
(11:44):
the Protestant religion, food is not something to be enjoyed.
Food is a thing of substance. So there has never
been this deep history of food because food has never
been a priority in this region of the world in
regards to enjoyment like it is in France and Spain
and Italy and stuff like that. So this way of
thinking in this region of the world is new, and
(12:06):
so that new part of the title has had a
place at a certain moment in time. And I get
asked often like why how do you think Nordic cuisine
has been able to retain its time at the top
of influential cuisines in the world. And the answer is simple,
(12:26):
is that, unlike other cuisines, because we don't have this
like really like rich food history here, we don't have
rules that we have to follow culturally, and so the
cuisine itself keeps evolving. And if I look at how
(12:46):
people were cooking here in two thousand five, and then
look at how the next generation of chefs are cooking
now in Scandinavia, I mean it's a different thing completely.
And there are things that were important then that aren't
important now, and they were rules set out by this
manifesto that are become obsolete. And this whole next generation
(13:11):
of chefs coming through have really challenged what Nordic cuisine
is because you have so many foreigners coming to this
region of the world to cook, and the majority of
the people running the restaurants in Copenhagen are not from here.
(13:39):
The global influence of the Nordic food movement can't be
overstated because so many chefs themselves are the ones that
are constantly reinforcing its importance and their own lives and
in their own careers and point of origin. Episode two,
we heard Geesely Grimson from Salt Work in Iceland saying
this very thing, but basically the new Nordic food scene,
(14:05):
which is brought to the world by many people in Scandinavia,
but most notably probably renerand Zappi and the team at Noma.
It kind of opened the eyes of many Icelandic chefs
too to be proud of what is surrounding us. So
I mean, I can say I started working in the
restaurant industry about like tann or eleven years ago, and
(14:28):
then people wouldn't be using seaweed that is growing around.
They wouldn't be kind of really they would be more
proud to use kind of black truffles from Italy or
or or these kind of like Italian parmesanos or this
like proshut cut ham and all that, because nobody kind
of was super proud of Icelandic food traditions. And in
(14:53):
episode eleven, we heard chef Michael alec Debi talking about
how it was the power of the story that read
Zeppi and Noma were able to help craft that made
it so influential. In other words, not just amplifying the
influence of the food itself, but also even how we
talk about the food um And what I've learned from
(15:15):
a lot of the chefs are the stories they tell.
They get to tell the story of their cuisine, of
their food, of their people through the art that they
have and through the art that the exhibit. Even chefs
that I didn't work with, like Renewed Zeppi and alex
Atala and Massimos Botura, how their approach towards their cuisine
(15:40):
have changed the world's perception. For our Reneed, no one
looked at Scandinavian food as you know, anything more than
potatoes and you know, carrots, And now the Northern cuisine
is being revered and it's because of that representation and
the stories that are told behind the the people and
(16:00):
the tradition that was Matt Orlando, chef and owner at
a mass and brought in and build brewery in Copenhagen.
(16:51):
Welcome back to point of origin. Today. Our special guest
is Chef David Zilberg, who is the fermentation guru at
Noma or more formally known as the Director of Fermentation
at NOMA. He is also the author of the essential
book on fermentation called The Nope But Guide to Fermentation,
(17:14):
and we are pleased to have him join us today. David,
thank you so much for joining us. On point of origin.
Thank you for having me of course here. Of course,
of course I ended up in Copenhagen because I was fascinated,
like I think many people are in the world of
food about restaurant Noma. So I shot off a little
to Denmark and they snatched me up. That was in
(17:35):
two thousand and four team in the spring. Yeah, I
worked in the main kitchen for about a year and
that was very much a shock coming from my little
provincial country of Canada to the big leagues of you know,
European mission Star fifty best less restaurants. Let's stuck with
him and get my head down and tried to work hard.
And about a year into my time, they're, um, you know,
(17:55):
Rene and Dan Drew studio head chefs set me down
and said, you know, times for me and they wanted
me ton't start working at From addition that that's kind
of a semi position. When David Zilber reached out to
Noma in two thousand fourteen, Noma was already very much
a thing. Part of it's and enduring influence then and
(18:18):
even now has been the team's ability to attract and
retain talent. Like Matt Orlando said, most of the folks
in Noma's kitchen aren't from Denmark. That can be credited
in part to red Zeppy's investment in R and D.
After a year and a half at Noma, Silber was
promoted and now holds the position of Director of Fermentation,
(18:41):
which is one of the most distinguished in the field.
I've always been a really nerdy guy, you know, like
I never went to university. I barely scraped through high school.
But in my own private life, you know, I always
have this thirst phenology, lay too much time on Wikipedia
or you know, just picking up science non fictions up
(19:01):
on my own. And that's that was for a long
time kind of my form of relaxation outside of the
kitchen and my form of entertainment. And by the time
I got to know my age, what was it was
like twenty seven and twenty eight, Like there's been enough
kind of under my belt by that point in terms
of my own private reading that I just had the
capacity to explain a lot of things that maybe other
(19:23):
books in the kitchen might have taken for granted. You know,
one one kind of token example, one day, the bone
marrow wasn't doing so well, and then I had to explain, oh, well,
you know, the fat inside marrow is an interlinked layer
of cells to contain water. So if you de hydrated
slightly before service, he moved that surface water and trap
sugar molecules which will help a caramelize that. Yeah, with
(19:45):
within a year, you know, I was thankful that I
started doing something else and I had never expected that.
That's not why I arrived at Normal, but it was
kind of like one of these life changing moments where
you're like, oh, this could lead to some really amazing
opportunities for me. But I'd also like to say that,
you know, like me ending up in the formentation, that
doesn't necessarily light in to the top of this restaurants. Like,
(20:06):
there's a lot of people that make this place work,
and you know, there's amazing cooks like Meta in June
and the Test Kitchen and have the creative talent, but
I feel I lack in some ways and in terms
of their decisiveness or the ability to explore flavors in
this world, and their creativity is just you know, they're
they're kind of victual leading forces in that kitchen. You know,
(20:27):
maybe conceptually, I'm better suited to tinkering with fermentation and
coming up with ingredients or building blocks, But in this restaurant,
you know, there's no there's no one cook at the
top of the mountain. Like between our head chef and
our ingredient manager and the chefs, it takes a village.
Noma has expanded its influence by attracting talents from outside
of the food world, like anthropologist, molecular chemist, and agricultural
(20:52):
scientists who work in its Nordic Food Lab. So when
you hear David Silber talk about the environment at Noma
from his prayer as the now director of the fermentation Lab,
it was a really big deal for him to get
that promotion. Do you think Noma Do you think of
it as a restaurant? It is a restaurant, I mean,
(21:13):
that's how I had to define it. I would say
that it is. But it's very rare that I walk
into a restaurant and also call it an institution. You know,
and that's kind of also how we think about it.
Um when you moved into a role that was focused
on fermentation, this is happening. I mean you say, maybe
(21:34):
four or five years ago, concurrently with a moment nationally
or globally rather where fermentation was coming not really back
into fashion, but was being centered on restaurant menus. Can
can you say or do you? Can you theorize maybe
why over the last couple of years it seems like
(21:55):
the focus on fermentation has really been centered in rest
rants all over the world. But I really do think
it's less of the trend and more than understanding, Like
there is a deep comprehension that these things aren't out
of reach for people, and as they explore them for themselves,
they realize that it's powerful. And I don't think you
can never take that power away. That's not something you
(22:15):
get bored of. Once you make it, you have it
on hanging because the work it for a little more. So. Yeah,
because once you can focus on what's within your boundaries,
you can then be for you to kind of look
outside and then say, Okay, now I can take an
inspiration other spaces and then translate that to where I
am and make it make sense for me. And that's
exactly what we've done with the commentation for them come
(22:37):
to get go from those first investigations on the household,
but looking more the food love, these were a bunch
of very curious and passion of cooks that we're just
looking at blood for inspiration and trying to translate that
to the terrore of of of the current locale, and
in doing so you end up with a deep understanding.
You're not just learning by roads. It takes up the
found taking apart and understanding of the intermach nations to
(22:59):
build something back up that is completely new. So it's
definitely exploded and expanded, and the amount of restaurants that
would definitely fall under that cachet has grown many times over,
but it's still there. And even though even at Noma,
you know we might cook with all of the allier
there get our see me from Japan and Troubles from
Australia and kind of trade our footsteps to our travels,
it doesn't feel like we're any less about celebrating the
(23:22):
region that we're in or coming up the flavors that
make for a distinct cuisine. So I think it's a
valid now as it ever worked. But it's also mature,
you know, and it's grown beyond that kind of boyish
naive to tay about making your mark on the world
that maybe got it to come about in the first place,
and I doesn't think it's kind of aged into a
(23:44):
really amazing place where you have all these amazing restaurants
with Emily as well as producing you know, whole generations
of talent. I'm curious how you know, stories like yours
of chefs coming from different parts of the world for
the Noma experience and then you know, in many cases
(24:04):
moving on to start their own restaurants or even in
the cases where they stay. How much has the worldliness
of the staff over the years impacted the cuisine at
Noma UM in Copenhagen as well? The influence of of
like a multinational kitchener's impacted incredibly profoundly, in no offense
(24:25):
to the Dames. But back in Canada, I mean, we
have First Nations people, we have Aboriginals that this in Denmark,
you know, this is where white people come from it,
so it's a fairly comogenous society by its nature. But
as Noma kept growing, I mean the amount of Dames
that represented the kitchen kind of dwindled as it attracted
world attention, and it became an attractor for um, you know,
(24:49):
top shops around the world, kind of sipening off the
crumvilla crump of that crop. So when it comes to
(25:24):
New Nordic food, we talk a lot about farms and
ingredients and sourcing, and even though conceptually we understand these things,
it all feels and sounds kind of nebulous. So we
wanted to talk to a chef who was influenced by
the New Nordic Food movement, not necessarily from having worked
in the kitchens at Noma or like restaurants in Copenhagen,
(25:46):
but having observed the style of cooking from Afar and
let it infuse their own. So we talked to Chef
Jeremy Charles, who is considered to be one of the
very best chefs in Canada. And we're talking to Chef
Charles about a cod and I think in the way
that we discussed the utilization of the fish, you will
(26:09):
hear with a lot more specificity the philosophical in gastronomical
role of New Nordic food in his own So while Obviously,
Noma did not invent utilizing local fish and its entirety.
There is something about the surrounding ideology presented by Chef
(26:29):
Charles through this Michelin Star lens which I think will
help people understand how the new Nordic style has really
rippled outward. So here is Chef Jeremy Charles. We're here
at Rifflin Hitch Lodge, an incredible fishing lodge in a
(26:50):
state in Labrador on the Eagle River, which I think
you can hear in the background, and I'm here with
one of Canada's most owned and celebrated chefs, Jeremy Charles. Today. Hey,
how's it going. Thanks for hanging out, Thanks for having me.
I mean, what a beautiful spot to be. I grew
up in St. John's, which is the capital of Newfoundland
(27:14):
and Labrador. I spent a lot of my summers in
a small fishing village with my grandmother and grandfather. Yeah,
it was a place where they lived off the land.
You know, they grew their gardens, they ate from the
land and see picked berries and you know, as a kid,
I spent a lot of time down on the wharf
cutting out cod tongues and really being exposed to the
(27:37):
traditional ways and roots of Newfouland, you know. And I
spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandparents,
cooking a lot of traditional meals. You know, we grew
out picking berries and come back and make a beautiful pie.
And and again going down to the wharf and you know,
bringing up to cod fish and splitting them with my
grandfather and on a rock in front of the house,
(27:57):
and using all the parts of the cod fish. You know,
it wasn't just the boneless, skinless loins. It was you know,
busting down the cod's head and taking out the cod
tongues and the napes and just using the whole fish
and celebrating the whole animal. You know, all the remains
went back into the garden to help for lots of gardens.
There was nothing that that went to waste. And um,
(28:19):
you know, they were they were eating organically before the
word organic really meant anything to people. You know, that
generation of people. My grandmother's ninety two right now, and
she's still making bread and buns and it's uh, it's
so inspiring. And and it was that was just the
way of life. That's how people lived in New foland
can you tell us a bit about what napes are
(28:42):
for the listeners who might not be familiar. Yeah, the
cod napes, well, our way of saying the uh, the
fins the collar of the codfish, and we cut those
out and they're almost like the chicken wing of the codfish.
Are so beautiful and so much gelatin and they're just
something you pick up in your hands and you get
tucked into it. You know. It's uh, it's uh, yeah,
(29:03):
it's it's probably the best way to describe it. And
I understand it's one of your favorite parts of the cod. Yeah.
I mean a lot of people again that market and stuff,
we're just buying bonless, skinless cod and you see people
bone out fish and you know they take off the
loins and the whole fish goes over the side or
in the bin. It's just like, my god, you know,
there's so much to a cod fish more than just
(29:27):
just the loins. So when we're breaking down cod where yeah,
you use the napes and the tongues and the cheeks,
the heads, and we use the sounds which are the
sound ballast of the fish and um, yeah, it's you
know for for New Flann that's the whole reason why
people can a new flanners for the cod fish. You know,
when when you say the word fish, people just assume
(29:48):
you're talking about codfish, and cod is king and always
will be, you know. Yeah, Can you talk a little
bit about the role that cod played over the last
few centuries here end up until the nineteen nineties UM
when the industry began to decline here, cod fish was
everything to New Fland and most a lot of parts
(30:08):
of Labrador. I mean, the island was full of fishing
communities all across the island and it sustained generations of people.
And you know, we traded salt cod for molasses and
rum and salt, and you know, we shipped caught all
around the world Spain, Portugal, you know, down the islands, Jamaica,
and it was such an important resource and such an
(30:33):
important part of our obviously culture and it's kind of
ingrained in who we are. And the whole idea is
to celebrate again all the wild, beautiful ingredients from land.
And see, we're so fortunate here in New Fland were
able to serve wild game moose and rabbits and partridge
and grouse and some of the most beautiful seafood in
the world, scallops and sea urchin and obviously codfish and
(30:57):
snow crab, lobster, whelks, razor clams. Uh, you know, the
list goes on. But you know, for many years, a
lot of those products were just like frozen or just
shipped out of the province to Japan, New York, Boston,
you know, China and Russia, and you know sea urchin
(31:18):
or welks or razor clams. You know, those were things
that I didn't see at my grandmother's table, you know,
and people really didn't acknowledge those ingredients. And I was like,
my god, you know, we can live in these big cities,
and seeing how prize these ingredients were to so many people,
it was like, we have all this beautiful, beautiful things
back home that are not being celebrated put on plates.
(31:41):
So I was really excited when I did return home
to start to showcases ingredients that were really kind of yeah,
not part of the culture, not part of the diet,
you know. And m yeah, that was really really exciting.
For sure. You know that you're only as good as
your products, and when you have beautiful products, you just
try to keep it simple and showcase those things. But
(32:02):
those relationships are a big part of it. And it's
not just ordering off an order sheet and you know, cooking,
it's all about what goes into sourcing these ingredients and things.
We are able to tell you a story actually where
the food is actually coming from, you know, and how
it's been harvested, and and what neck of the woods
is coming from and almost down to the individual. Yeah,
(32:22):
and that's all comes back to creating a sense of place.
And and uh, for many years, I don't think New
Flan really had a food identity, shall we say, you know,
we kind of got lost in lost in space. I
don't know. We're an island in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean, way out on the end of Canada. You know.
For for many years we're forgotten about. And even when
(32:44):
people talked about New Flan, they talked about fish and
chips and deep fried food. And you know, everybody here
didn't want any traditional foods. They wanted everything else outside
of the province, you know. And so I think it
was about ten fifteen years ago maybe things started to change,
you know. I think, you know, myself and Jeremy and
(33:05):
a few other people were a big part of that
of bringing back being proud of ingredients around us and
proud of the food and really again going back to
our roots, you know, and back to our roots sellers
and growing things in our gardens and showing people that
it's okay to to live off the land. It's okay
to celebrate the things around you. It doesn't have to
(33:25):
come from outside the province. You know. For many years
people always wanted stuff from outside, and it was like
nobody focused on all the beautiful things we had. And
I think that comes back to you know, education too,
especially with all the while edibles here, all the beautiful
Chantrell's and all the wonderful things that are in the
woods that are just at our fingertips that people had
(33:46):
no idea about, you know, not many anyhow. But yeah,
it's been it's been a great time to be part
of definitely food movement. You know. It's a wonderful culture
here and it's a special place and I'm super proud
to be to be home and to be able to
come to places like this and spend time with friends
and the fish and hunting again, live off the land
(34:10):
and be a family. Our last guest today, chef Boback
is one of the trailblazers of the Copenhagen food scene.
He first made his name at restaurant Palace Gin, where
(34:32):
he won a Michelin star, and in two thousand and
eleven he opened up his restaurant Geist, where he's still
the executive chef. Today we're picking up with him speculating
on how Danish culture might have been the key to
understanding the formation of the Nordic food movement. Here's Chef Bobeck.
(34:56):
If you're born in Italy or Spain, in or France,
which is the big countries, and in our part of
the world, our continent, I bet that they're they're under
the spell of the mama culture. That your mama would
look at them and say, my boy, don't you change
(35:16):
the thing. You're beautiful, you're strong, you have the right genes.
I bet it's the same here in America. But when
you're born in Denmark, your mother looks at you with straight,
honest eyes, very clear. She says, if you want to
be anything, you gotta learn You gotta learn language. Because
(35:36):
you live in a country that only has six million people.
No one understands your tongue. So if you want to
accomplish anything, you've gotta open up your eyes. That's what
you're being taught. Long story short. I think what happened
was we were a group of maybe twenty chefs around
(35:58):
that time. And this is because there's a group of
chefs who are able to work across Europe without being
paid and then eventually bring those skills from in some
cases three Michelin star restaurants back to Copenhagen. And so
now you have kind of the makings of a new
(36:22):
food culture because you have a group of highly skilled
and trained chefs who have just arrived back to Copenhagen
in the early two thousands. Is that right? It might
sound ridiculous no pay, but it was very simple. Otherwise
you don't get inside the door. So how did you survive?
(36:45):
You work at a cafe next there, you do some shifts,
you do a job as a dishwasher. You get enough
to run. The ironic positive side of it is you're
working six days a week. You don't need clothes, I
mean one set of clothes last week. You don't you
don't need food because you're eating at the restaurant. You
(37:05):
talk about Nordic and and the creation and the birth
of it, the romantic story that I try and and
and the way I try and explain to this it's
a little bit like a cat that gets lured up
in the tree. It's not concerned about how it's going
to get down again. It's just going forward. There's something
(37:30):
that's more interesting up in that tree, and that's why
it goes up there. Then there's no doubt about it
that who everyone knows at Noma was simply just a
better translator of everything. He by far was better man
(37:51):
at at setting up an organization around the whole thing
and putting words to it and executing it. And boy
or boy, it has he changed it. And I couldn't
be more proud of it. And it's it's as simple
as that. You know, there's this line I always used,
how can you miss something if you don't know it exists?
(38:12):
And there made it exist, so you would create it.
Danish food. The Nordic style approach has the same strength
in architecture as well. It's a very clean lines, very understandable,
(38:34):
almost naked, and when you work in such a visual
and flavorful, clear vision, it becomes much easier to understand
the language. And I think it has many similarities to
Japanese lifestyle and cooking, and maybe the world was just
(38:58):
begging for some one to open their eyes and it
happened to be him, all us that group of people.
And but there always need to be a face on
something and where you all talking to each other about
a collective vision for the food that you wanted to cook.
(39:23):
I think we talked about it, but not in the
sense that you would hope that we would choke about it.
We were friends. But what you all have collectively done
has been transformative, and that people are thinking about cuisine
as something that is closely related to identity and the
(39:46):
amount of pride and resourcefulness that Renee was able to
help articulate as a very visible and charismatic leader really
inspired a lot of chefs around the world world and
in turn it brought a lot of people to Copenhagen
and really has given Copenhagen this reputation. And your restaurant
(40:09):
is a big part of that as well. And so
I wonder now that this thing that we didn't know
we wanted to exist, it existed, it has thrived in
such a way that now everyone is trying to create
their own equivalents for their culture. What do you think
(40:30):
about this movement that you helped build, and what do
you think about its utility in the future, if at all,
if it needs to have a future, given how far
it's come in the last let's say ten or fifteen years.
Let me give an analogy of one of the big
staples of American American football, New England Patriots. Either people
(40:57):
hate them or they loved them. They have a guy,
a quarterback, com Tom Brady, and a genius also, Build Bilichick.
You know, do your job. But the thing is when
the team starts out, they have to figure out how
to work, how to play, how to make this happen.
(41:18):
And then after that all the other teams start studying them.
What are their moves, what are their secrets? So what
keeps them in the game for so long is their
self reflection of acknowledging we need to move, We need
to be in a movement as well. We can't be static,
(41:41):
we can't celebrate our successes. And that's I think one
of the keystones to the survival of any great cuisine
is that it's in movement, that it's constantly evolving. When
you live inside the fourst you just see the trees.
(42:02):
You don't see the forest and you're just doing what
you do. You guys, you see the forest because you're
looking from a distance. As as long as we just
keep doing what it is we're doing, we will become relevant.
And if not, so be it. It's not important. What's
(42:22):
important is one of my life mantrass is it's easier
to remember the truth than the lie. And and if
you live a life like that, it's just so easy
because you just gotta do what you do. You don't
have to be concerned. I think life gets complicated when
(42:43):
you start doing what you think you should be doing
because other people are telling you you should be doing this.
So how should we regard the most influential international food
movement of the last decade as something that happened or
(43:07):
is happening. What's unequivocally true is that Scandinavia is now
very much on the map alongside France, Spain and Italy
as the most regarded cuisines in Europe and in fact
among the very best in the world. The New Nordic
movement spawned a very real and very robust hospitality industry,
(43:29):
gastro tourism sector, food artisans and innumerable small farmers, the
movement that we used to call New Nordic. Now it's
just Nordic, and I think more than anything that pretty
much says it all. I'd like to thank our guest
(43:54):
today Matt Orlando of a mass and brought In and Build,
David Dilbert, fermentation director at NOMA, and Bobeck of Geist
All in Copenhagen. Thanks to Chef Jeremy Charles of Raymonds
and the Merchant Havever in St. John's Newfoundland Special. Thanks
to Simon Lavender who created the music featured in today's
(44:16):
episode special. Thanks to my business partner who makes all
things possible at Whetstone are co founder Melissa she Thanks mel.
Thank you to Selene Glazier, who is our lead producer.
To Cat Hong, our editor, to Havin Obasa Lassa and
Quentin lebou our production interns. To our friends at iHeart
(44:39):
Radio for helping us bring you this podcast. To Gabrielle Collins,
our supervising producer, engineer J. J. Pauseway and executive producer
Christopher Hasiotis. I'm your host, the origin Forager Steven Saderfield,
and we will be back here next week with more
from Whetstone Magazine's point of origin podcast, What w
Host
Stephen Satterfield
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