Bonus: Alexandra Mousavizadeh remembers traditional Danish cuisine

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1:00at washablesofas.com. Authors are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Moncler. Now we see Danish food as one of the meccas of culture. 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 stash. What do you think? Well, what was the food? What were you eating? Was it fish? Was it open sandwiches? Well, Denmark is famous for its open sandwiches. But it's also, fish is a really core ingredient of the Danish cuisine.

1:40We would have cod and pickled herrings and place and mackerels and eels. And that was very much the core of the sort of Danish cuisine. And my father cooked that very, very well. He did cod in every which way. He was also a hunter, and I would go with him, and he would shoot deer and pheasants and ducks and whatnot, and it would always be hanging somewhere outside. And then I would help him clean it up, and he would cook. And he was an amazing cook of game and of birds. How do you do that without it turning out dry? But he was very good. So we had that in our house, and then we had a lot of fish.

2:24And it harks back, I think. You could sort of trace the Danish food, 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 local. What did Vikings eat? What did Vikings do? They ate cod and they ate herring and they ate actually halibut at the time. And that was that sort of still to this day. And a lot of foraging. I mean, even back in the 70s, you would go and pick things in the woods. So do you think this laid the kind of foundation for the new Danish food? When was that revolution in Danish? When did that happen or was it a slow burn?

3:02I think the tradition of foresting and fish and local produce was there all along. But I think it was really the opening of Noma and Red Zeppi. Tell us about Noma. Well, Noma, I mean, is built on that tradition of foraging. And he's very purist. And you've been there. And it's an unusual experience because 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 the same principles of local produce and sort of rethinking the Danish menu. And it's with such joy to go back to Copenhagen. that was very different when I was growing up in the 70s no one would ever go to a restaurant there were maybe two that I can remember did your parents take you to restaurants?

3:58no, 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 the most yeah, it's a Mecca I think the other thing that Rema did is that he, with Noma is he really focused not just, as you say, on the ingredient, on the seasonality, on the foraging, but really teaching and spreading the word. And, you know, I say when you walk into Noma, you see all the chefs around a table, and you feel they're really taking care and they're learning. And I think that spread. And when they left Noma, they started their own restaurants.

4:43And 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 then, you know, and people are kind of traveling there and enjoying. So I think it's a good... Yeah, Copenhagen is definitely having a moment now, and I think it is driven by the food. The food is what people often travel there for, the restaurants that are great. And there's others like Geranium is also one of the big sort of draws to Copenhagen. And as you say, it then drives the hotels that are opening up, the beautiful hotels that are now in Copenhagen that really weren't there 15 years ago.

5:31So it's completely blossoming. And the bicycling. And the art. The art in Louisiana. It makes me want to get on a plane right now.

5:46Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair.

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