A New, New Nordic?

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 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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

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 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, 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, 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.

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

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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,

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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 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

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 the tradition that was Matt Orlando, chef and owner at a mass and brought in and build brewery in Copenhagen.

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, 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 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, 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 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, 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 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

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 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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

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, top shops around the world, kind of sipening off the

crumvilla crump of that crop. So when it comes to 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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

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, 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

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 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 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 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 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

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.

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

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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 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.

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 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 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

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 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? 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 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 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 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?

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, 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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. 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, 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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