(Bonus Episode) Alexandra Mousavizadeh remembers traditional Danish cuisine

In this week's bonus, Alexandra Mousavizadeh remembers the food of her childhood in Denmark. She and I discuss its roots in Viking times - heavily grounded in fishing and foraging - and how this laid the foundation for Denmark as a food mecca.

Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's table for in partnership with Montclair.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Now we see Danish food as one of the mechas
of cultural people. I was flown, you know, from London
to Copenhagen on a plane, just to have a meal,
you know, or two meals, and you know it's now
seen as chefs here will go to Copenhagen to do
a start.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
What do you think, Well, what was the food? What
were you eating? Was it fish? Was it?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
And it opened sandwich?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, Denmark is famous for its open sandwiches, but it's
also fish is a really core.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Ingredient of the Danish cuisine.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We would have cord and pickled herrings and place and
so and mackerels and eels and and that was very
much the core of our of the sort of Danish cuisine.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
And my father cooked that very very well.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
He did. He did cord in every which way. But
he was also a hunter. And I would go with
him and he would shoot deer and pheasants and ducks
and whatnot, and they would always be hanging somewhere outside
and then I would help him clean it up and
he would he would cook, and he was and he
was an amazing cook of game and of birds too.
You know, how do you do that without you know,

(01:13):
it turning out dry?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
But he was. He was very good. So there was
we had that in our house, and then.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
We had a lot of the fish of fish, and
it harks back. I think you could sort of trace
the Danish food, you know, uh you know ingredients of course,
all the way back to Viking times. You look at
what was eaten there. Of course, obviously it has to
be like seed. What did Vikings do?

Speaker 3 (01:33):
They ate?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
They ate cord, and they ate herring, and they ate
ashley haliburt at the time, and that was that sort
of still to this day. And a lot of foraging.
I mean even back in the seventies you would go
and pick things in the woods.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Do you think this lad the kind of foundation for
the new Danish fish? When when was that revolution in Danish?
When when did that happen?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Or was it a slow burn?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think the tradition of foresting and fish local produce
was there all along, but I think it was really
the opening of Noma and red Zeppi that you know tell.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Us about Nomah, Well, Nomah, I.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Mean it's built on that tradition of foraging, and he's
very pureist. And you've been there, and it's an unusual
experience because and he's extremely experimental, and as you said,
he has borne a lot of chefs and kitchens that
have sprung up all across Copenhagen and Denmark that follow

(02:32):
the same principles of local produce and and sort of
rethinking the Danish sort of the Danish menu. And it's
so it's so with such joy to go back to Copenhagen.
That was very different. When I was growing up in
the seventies. No one would ever go to a restaurant.
There were maybe.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Two that I can repair to take you to a restaurant.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
No, not that wasn't a big we I think, like
most in Copenhagen thought that it was quite frivolous to
go to a restaurant. We would always eat at home
and entertain at home. But now it's it's it's the
most Yeah, it's a mecca. It's a mecca.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, I think the other thing that Rema did is
that he with Noma is he he really focused, not
just as you say, on the ingredient and the seasonality
and the forging, but really teaching and spreading the word
and making you know. I say, when you walk into Noma,
you see all the chefs around a table and there

(03:30):
you feel they're really taking care and they're learning. And
it was and I think that spread then when they
left Nomah, they started their own restaurants. And it does
also show how food can you know, be the culture
of a city of a nation and bring people and
tourism and then you have great restaurants and you have
great hotels and they you know, and people are kind

(03:53):
of traveling there and enjoying.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I think is definitely having a moment now and
I think it is driven by the food.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
The food is what people often travel there for.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
The restaurants that are that are great, and there's others
like Geranium as also one of the one of the
big sort of drawers to Copenhagen. And as you say,
it then drives the hotels that are opening up, the
beautiful hotels that are that are that are now in
Copenhagen that that really weren't there fifteen years ago. So

(04:27):
it's completely blossoming and uh and uh, and the bicycling.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
And there are and they are Louisiana. Yeah, it makes
you want to get on a plane right now.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's table for in partnership
with Montclair