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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Fancy some iconic celeriac? New Nordic cuisine, now a blockbuster exhibition
When is gastronomy about more than just recipes? When it is New Nordic cuisine: to its advocates, the most influential culinary movement of the 21st century; to its detractors, a school of foodie puritans who have spent the last two decades sucking the joy out of dining and injecting it with po-faced declarations. If a decade of breathy Netflix food programming is to be believed, you could delicately tweezer some edible petals and micro-herbs on to locally foraged mushrooms and a bed of ancient grains, serve it with a naturally fermented lemonade, and you've got yourself a cracking (if not hugely substantive) New Nordic meal. In fact, what the movement tried to bring to the table was more than that: a wider philosophy that linked your lunch with the natural world, local culture and tradition, while being evangelical about improving your relationship with all three. As Martin Braathen, the curator of a major new exhibition marking New Nordic's 20th anniversary pronounces ominously: 'A carrot is not only a carrot.' New Nordic professed a strong interest in food education, public health and nutrition, it carefully tracked ingredients from farm, fjord or forest to table, and had a substantial environmental component. It was aspirationally low waste, low impact and low intervention. At its ambitious best, its chefs took on the challenge of replacing non-native imports such as citrus fruits, by asking questions like: can we create a vinegar that is light enough to imitate lemon juice? Failing that, could we just use ants? (Ants have a lemon-like flavour.) One dish singled out in Norway's National Museum's show New Nordic: Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place is Swedish chef Daniel Berlin's 'iconic' signature celeriac dish – where the vegetable is first grilled over an open fire, then baked in foil for hours. The charred skin is used to make bread, the celeriac roots are used to make a stock, and then a sauce, and a slaw is made from the tops, bringing waste as close to zero as possible. It is also avowedly seasonal and localist. Over the past two decades, New Nordic has navigated various controversies in a bid to elevate regional identity and folk heritage, and as the Oslo exhibition shows, it extends that enthusiasm to non-culinary local arts and crafts such as decor, architecture, design, visual art, pottery and glassware. Outside, the heady smell of birch smoke drifts through the custom-built pavilion, where they are making coffee over a wood fire – very much like normal coffee, perhaps with a hint of birch smoke. The exhibition brings in tableware and artworks from some of the New Nordic scene's garlanded restaurants, as well as maps, farming and fishing tools and photographs which speak to local landscapes as much as the food they produce. 'Moss is used both as decor and as an ingredient in broths,' reads one straight-faced caption. Earth tones abound, and drying seaweed, haunches, hides and leaves hang from wooden beams. All of this began with the 10-point Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen, published in 2004. Some of the manifesto's 12 authors would go on to become household names in Scandinavia and beyond, like Noma's René Redzipi and Claus Meyer. The signatories were drawn not just from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but also Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland; all 12 were male. Spiritually, it shared something with its Scandi predecessor from a decade earlier, the infamous Dogme 95 cinematic manifesto: ostensibly didactic and po-faced, but in practice more playful and loose (the film-makers nicknamed their manifesto 'the vow of chastity', and then proceeded to break most of their own rules). Its arrival in the mid-2000s begged the question: what was old Nordic cuisine – what was it replacing, and what was wrong with it? Meatballs, herring, potatoes, stodge, bacon and butter – but the greater complaint was of the excess of imported, unseasonal foods; it was a response to ever slicker global supply chains and culinary homogenisation, more than a protest against the Ikea lunch. In this respect, New Nordic is an heir to Italy's Slow Food movement, prompted by the arrival of Italy's first McDonald's in 1986, or French farmer and activist José Bové's elevation to national hero in 1999, when he and fellow trade unionists 'dismantled' a new branch of McDonald's in protest against American hormone-treated beef. 'New Nordic pushes back against the global food industry,' Braathen says: prior to its arrival, 'we ignored the local'. It places great emphasis on the immediate landscape the restaurant sits in, and a desire to 'capture' it in a dish – an idea now frequently cited in British food TV shows. Two decades is more than enough time in the spotlight to acquire dissenters, too. At its worst, New Nordic can seem dogmatic, chauvinistic, and elitist – little more than smug 'bro' auteur-chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants showing off to each other, and their rich diners. The backlash has grown in recent years. 'I have eaten in Michelin-starred New Nordic restaurants where presenting the menu felt more like a lecture than a treat.' wrote Petri Burtsoff in Monocle last month, in a piece that claimed the 'fiddly', 'fussy' and 'pretentious' style has fallen out of favour in Scandinavia itself, replaced by something more hearty, relaxed and simple. Copenhagen's Noma – five-time winner of Best Restaurant in the World, for those keeping score – announced they were closing in 2023, to great fanfare, although still haven't pulled the plug, with reservations filled until the end of this year, for a tasting menu that costs a cool 4,400DKK, or £500 per head. For an institution inclined to grandiose talk about sustainability, recent revelations that Noma's business model seems to have been built on legions of unpaid interns, or stages, have undermined fine dining's reputation at large. In Noma's case, the Financial Times found that up to 30 stagiaries were working in the kitchen in 2019, almost as many as their 34 paid chefs at the time. It's all very well treating your hand-foraged molluscs with care – one New Nordic legacy is the frequency with which TV chefs talk sanctimoniously about 'respecting the ingredients' – but what about respecting the sentient beings you're getting to clean them? For all of its elevation of traditional, preindustrial techniques, New Nordic always claimed to have remained a living, breathing movement. Oslo-based ceramicist Anette Krogstad, whose hand thrown stoneware appears in the exhibition, stresses that point. Like the food on the table, her plates themselves are seasonal – some designs more suited to winter, others to summer. But Krogstad is keen that these lofty ideas are not on a pedestal, or out of reach. 'I don't want people to buy my ceramics and then put them away, and save them for a nice dinner,' she says: 'I want them to be used every day.' Can the same be said about the trickle-down effect of New Nordic's fine-dining masters on local eateries? Just beyond the museum, the cheerful cafe Elias makes no mention of New Nordic principles – the head chef had not heard about the new exhibition and said he would probably be too busy to visit – but they are on display nonetheless. I ate a meltingly tender, deep-red elk carpaccio, sprinkled with tart lingonberries, bitter rocket, the crunch of pine nuts and red onion, and a salty local organic cheese, Holtefjell. For dessert, the cloudberry panna cotta was made with cream and tjukkmjølk (a soured milk) from Røros, to the north of Oslo. The meal came to £50 for two courses, a soft drink and tip, pretty affordable by Oslo standards. To pull off the trick of being sophisticated and surprising, but still accessible and unpretentious – that's the sweet spot. Walk further around the affluent Tjuvholmen neighbourhood surrounding the museum, though, and the gastronomic upheaval lauded inside its walls becomes less tangible. Among the Kapoor, Gormley and Bourgeois sculptures, and underneath the waterside apartments, the restaurant options included Eataly, Los Tacos, Entrecote, Big Horn Steakhouse, New Delhi and Yokoso sushi and ramen. The food huts outside sold macarons and gelato. This isn't to say New Nordic cuisine has proven a failure, just that its advocates are fighting an uphill battle against the Instagram-enabled appeal of the same global smorgasbord you might find in London, Melbourne, Los Angeles or Barcelona. But is New Nordic over? For Braathen, this exhibition is indeed a retrospective; but while we might be talking about it in the past tense, there is clearly a lot more work to be done – and some of its advocates are refusing to call time at the natural wine bar. 'While the Nordic food movement has been a success by any standard, the vision that guides it still holds a great deal of unrealised potential,' said last month's report from December's New Nordic Food Summit. To realise this potential, in the face of the global food and farming industries, will be a challenge. Soaring food prices have caused concern in Norway recently, as in so much of the world – with prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre promising to address them ahead of September's election. The cause of these high food prices? Extremely high tariffs on imports, to protect Norwegian farmers – it is hard to imagine easing that protectionism will do much to support New Nordic Cuisine. For Noma co-founder Meyer, the movement's legacy should be to blend into the background. 'Now we should just move on, talk less about the New Nordic cuisine and just let it become a part of our lives,' he said back in 2015. It's a noble intention – but the struggle to extol the virtues of the local against the global food industry will not be won easily. New Nordic: Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place is at the National Museum, Oslo, until 14 September
SBS Australia
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
World-renowned chef Analiese Gregory is back for a brand-new season of the stunning original series, A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking
Premieres Monday 23 June on SBS On Demand and SBS Food Watch the trailer here World renowned, Michelin star trained chef, Analiese Gregory is raising the stakes in the new season of her hit SBS series, A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking. The eight-part series will premiere on Monday 23 June at 7.30pm on SBS On Demand and SBS Food. After taking the biggest risk of her life and giving up an international restaurant career for a new life in a 115-year-old cottage in rural Tasmania, in season two Analiese is turning her cottage into a small boutique eatery. In each thirty-minute episode of this stunningly original series, Analiese will source the freshest local ingredients for the menu as she builds to a dramatic opening of her intimate 10-seater eatery. Seeking culinary inspiration for her new eatery, Analiese will dive into exciting new outdoor adventures , including hunting for wallaby, spearfishing and catching lobster by hand as she expands her quest for the best produce and freshest ingredients. Supported by her faithful new dog, a growing collection of farm animals and her local community, Analiese works to transform her farm into being more self-sufficient and eco-conscious. Living sustainably while showcasing new recipes that celebrate the best of pristine Tasmania, this season Analiese creates incredible dishes from land to plate including cauliflower fritters with garlic aioli, lobster cannelloni with a white asparagus sauce, char siu bao (pork roast buns), tender roast leg of lamb, and wallaby rendang. Learn how to eat seasonally, re-connect with nature, and bring some wilderness into your life with A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking . Analiese Gregory's new eatery, built in her Tasmanian Huon Valley cottage, opens soon where she'll serve a menu of dishes created with hyper-local produce to 10 people at a time. Host, Analiese Gregory said: 'I'm incredibly excited to share this new season of A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking where we go deeper into my journey in Tasmania, learn new skills, meet new friends, forage new ingredients and build a business on my property to make my life here truly sustainable. It's been a wild ride in all the senses, and I hope that people will take away from it that there is always a possibility to chase your dreams, overcome your fears, learn new tricks, get out in nature and reconnect with yourself. Even if sometimes you get cold, wet, and pick up a few bruises on the way!' SBS Head of Food and Entertainment, Emily Griggs said: 'Analiese Gregory's love of the wilderness and incredible culinary skills shine in A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking . Audiences loved going on the wild journey of discovery with Analiese in season one and It'sfantastic to haveher back on SBS as she goes on a new adventure creating her eatery and continuing to live off the land and sea in beautiful Tasmania. Get ready to ignite your inner wild ways while discovering new delicious recipes created by the freshest ingredients.' Screen Tasmania Executive Manager, Alex Sangston said: 'We're beyond excited for season 2 of A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking. Analiese continues to showcase the beauty and bounty of Tasmania, highlighting the incredible fresh produce the island has to offer. The show beautifully captures the warm, friendly Tassie lifestyle that we've all come to appreciate. We're also proud to support Navid and Broken Yellow, who have become a staple in Tasmanian production.' A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking season two premieres Monday 23 June at 7.30pm on SBS On Demand and SBS Food. A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking season two will be available to stream free on SBS On Demand with subtitling available in Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Vietnamese and Traditional Chinese. A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking season two is produced by Broken Yellow and Barking Mad Productions for SBS Food, with production support from Screen Tasmania and assistance from Tourism Tasmania. Biography – Analiese Gregory From the age of sixteen, Analiese Gregory has been making a name for herself in some of the world's most famous restaurants. Her career started in her home country of New Zealand, at Logan Brown in Wellington. From there she travelled to work in some of Europe's most prestigious kitchens, including 2 Michelin Star venues, The Ledbury in London and Mugaritz in Spain, 3 Michelin Star Michel Bras and Le Meurice in France, before spending five years alongside Peter Gilmore at one of Australia's most revered restaurants, Quay, in Sydney. It was from here Analiese went to the Moroccan desert, running a pop-up restaurant out of Numero 7 before returning to Sydney to join the team behind ACME. In 2016 Analiese opened her own Sydney venue, Bar Brose, before deciding to leave the city for a peaceful country life in Tasmania's Huon Valley. Analiese was working 16-hour days, winning a hugely coveted two Hats for the Hobart restaurant, Franklin. People travelled far and wide, from all over Australia and around the world, to taste her food. Amongst them, some of the world's most celebrated foodies, such as Nigella Lawson and Yotam Ottolenghi. Analiese Gregory has released a stunning book, How Wild Things Are: Cooking, Fishing and Hunting at the Bottom of the World , which celebrates slow food and the rugged Tasmanian landscape. She is fulfilling a long-held dream with the forthcoming opening a quaint 10-seater eatery that invites guests to feel as though they are eating at home. Nestled in the heart of the Huon Valley, the restaurant celebrates the very best of seasonal Tasmanian produce, brought to life through Analiese's uniquely personal and nature-driven approach to cooking. Hailed as one of the most exciting chefs of her generation, Analiese has now truly settled into her new life in Tasmania. For a PDF of this media release, click here.
Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
Raymond Blanc's top 10 tips to make your summer dishes go further
The good news? May's unseasonably hot weather has brought a glut of tomatoes and strawberries. And who better to show us what to do with them than Raymond Blanc? The French chef is best known for the lavish feasts at his restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire – but he's spent a lifetime championing zero food waste and sustainable cooking. Long before he stepped into a professional kitchen, Blanc learnt prudence and resourcefulness from his hard-working family, who came from a long line of farmers. Raymond, who grew up in the Franche-Comté region of France, says: 'My papa was a working class person with strong principles and work ethics. He once made me taste earth so I would truly appreciate it and all that grows from it. 'He built a beautiful house over six years, with six bedrooms for us all and our house had a huge garden around it which could feed the whole family all year round.' Mushrooms hung from the ceilings. Gargantuan pots were stashed next to preserves and pickles. In them, Maman would store stale bread that she would later use as a crumble, together with apples, for a mouth-watering family treat. They kept rabbits, among other animals. The fur would be sold. The rest was chopped and braised with white wine and mustard to make a sumptuous 'lapin à la moutarde'. 'Nothing would be left,' Raymond says. 'The first thing my maman taught me was, 'Raymond, you shall waste not'.' During strawberry season, their house was filled with the comforting aromas of intense, syrupy, well-drained strawberries. Making jam became a cottage industry, with maman making about 10 litres at a time. 'She taught me to understand where our food came from, which became the foundation of my cuisine,' he says. 'She taught me to embrace the seasons.' He named his first restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons (the house of the four seasons) with that ethos in mind. Homegrown, locally and ethically sourced ingredients have always been at the heart of his cooking. At Brasserie Blanc – the French restaurant group he founded – all staff, regardless of their role, are now taught how to reduce food waste in their own homes. Raymond's passion for sustainability is matched by his horror at how much food British households throw away: nearly five million tonnes of edible food each year, worth an estimated £17 billion – or around £1,000 per typical household – according to a study commissioned by the climate action group Wrap. Tackling the issue is 'everyone's responsibility,' says Raymond. And with just a few small changes to how we shop, we could all cut down on food waste at home. That means shopping mindfully, considering the provenance of our produce, and choosing fruit and vegetables that are in season. Instead of filling our trolleys with a hodgepodge of tempting treats, we should try some simple meal planning. 'People often over-shop. Just by writing a list before they go will help them to avoid the things they don't need,' Raymond says. He acknowledges two-for-one deals are a common temptation but encourages us to freeze any sauces or meals we have copious leftovers of. 'Just make sure you put a date on it – I label everything,' he says. With summer almost here, there's no need to bin wilted lettuce leaves or squishy strawberries the children turn their noses up at. Here, Raymond shares his top tips. Raymond's top ten tips to reduce summer food waste Limp salad leaves 'Don't consign limp salad leaves to the compost bin as they can be revived and refreshed by immersing them in iced water for 15 minutes before patting dry to restore their crispness. If they are beyond the point of redemption then you can turn them into a simple pesto – this works particularly well with 'Little Gem' lettuce. All you need is 100g of leaves, 50g Parmesan, 50g pine nuts (or any other nuts you have in your cupboards such as walnuts or cashews), a dash of olive oil, two cloves of garlic and the juice of one lemon. Simply blitz in a food processor to achieve your desired consistency. Pesto is not only perfect for pasta but also drizzled on soups or as a dip.' Leftover pastry 'Leftover shortcrust pastry can be safely stored in the freezer for up to eight weeks, but why not get creative and make a spring vegetable galette. In France, a galette is a free form tart, so you don't even need a pie dish to make them, just a baking tray. Roll out your pastry and add sautéed leeks, asparagus, peas or any other greens that you have in your fridge. Make sure you leave enough pastry around the edges to fold over the filling. Crumble over some feta cheese (or again, any cheese that you have in the fridge such as Gruyère or, my favourite cheese from my home region in France, Comté, that you can grate over). Fold the edges over the filling to create the sides to the tart. Brush the pastry with a beaten egg and then bake in the oven at 356F (180C) and 320F (160C) for fan assisted, until the pastry is crisp and golden. You can even use any tomato sauce or pesto that you have made to enhance the filling!' Strawberries 'If you are growing your own strawberries at home, they tend to ripen at different times. Picking them at their best and storing them in the freezer in a resealable bag is a great way to ensure you have a batch of perfectly ripe strawberries ready to cook into strawberry jam – and you can also do this with shop bought strawberries which tend to go soggy quickly. You don't even have to defrost them – you can cook them from frozen too. I've always preferred jams that have less sugar, where the fruit flavour is really intense.' Overripe tomatoes 'These are the perfect base for a sauce. The only ingredients you need are your tomatoes, an onion, garlic cloves and olive oil. Heat the olive oil in a pan and, once hot, add finely chopped onion and cook down until soft and translucent. Add garlic (either grated or finely chopped) and cook for a further minute. Finally, add your chopped tomatoes and cook the sauce for a further five minutes until it has reduced slightly and season it with salt and pepper. Let the sauce cool completely before freezing. When defrosted you have the perfect base sauce for a multitude of dishes.' Stale bread 'Blitz into breadcrumbs in a food processor and store in an airtight container in the freezer. For the perfect herb crust for lamb, add in some fresh herbs when you blitz the breadcrumbs in the food processor. Not only will the oils be released from the herbs but it will turn the crust into a beautiful vibrant green which will showcase your spring lamb perfectly. Stale bread is also perfect for making your own croutons. Cut the bread into cubes, place on a baking tray in the oven at 392F (200C) or 356F (180C) fan assisted, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper (you can also add dried herbs) and bake until crisp and golden. These make the ideal salad topper.' Vegetable peelings 'Rather than consigning them to the compost heap or the food waste bin, these can make a delicious snack. Season them with salt and pepper (you can also add other herbs of your choice for flavour) and pop them in the oven on a baking tray (374F/190C or 338F/170C for fan assisted) for 20 to 25 minutes. Take them out and leave them to cool and crisp up and enjoy them on their own or with your favourite dip. These also work well in an air fryer if you have one at home.' Make your own mirepoix 'Use up leftover vegetables in the fridge to make your own mirepoix – a flavoursome vegetable base to many French dishes. Dice the vegetables and slow cook with fat (usually butter) on a low heat, taking care not to brown them. Usually, the vegetable mixture includes two-part onion, one-part carrot and one-part celery. You can also add tomato puree. Once cool, you can portion and freeze until needed in everything from soups to stews.' Grow your own herbs from shop bought packs 'You can start your own herb garden with shop bought rosemary stalks. Take a rosemary stalk that you have stripped the leaves off for cooking and peel a little bit of the stalk off at the bottom. Pop the stalk in a glass of water and, after a week or so, you will start to see little shoots growing. Leave for a couple more weeks and then transfer to a pot filled with compost (with drainage) and pop it on your windowsill. A great project to do with the kids and you won't have to buy rosemary again!' Leftover lemons 'If you only need half a lemon for a recipe, don't discard the remainder or leave it to go mouldy in the fridge. Instead, cut it into wedges and pop it in the freezer. Defrost when you next need a lemon for a recipe or add it to your favourite tipple.' BBQ leftovers 'To prevent any leftovers, don't over commit when you plan a BBQ. Just stick to one thing like burgers or maybe some slow-cooked chicken thighs. It doesn't need to be a buffet of four or five different meats. Instead, focus on some lovely salads, flatbread and sauces to accompany your BBQ.'
