All aboard the gastronomic express. Next stop, progressive Denmark.
I often get asked what current food trends are. One I touched on late last year was foraging for wild and edible indigenous foods.
Of late, there has been the trend to "play" with food: change its molecular structure or to present ingredients in an alternative way.
This year, Copenhagen
restaurant Noma catapulted to the top of San Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants, turning many heads because of its obscurity in the mainstream media.
Chef Rene Redzepi has successfully blended all the latest trends, sourcing sustainable top-quality produce, using hulled grains and lentils, foraging for the obscure with textural presentation.
His signature dish of crunchy baby carrots from the Lammefjorden region standing in edible soil made from malt, hazelnuts and beer, with a cream herb emulsion has put this converted 18th-century dockside warehouse on the epicurean map.
Noma has exposed Denmark as a serious foodie destination. Danes are known for their conservatism, but young Danes' palates are rapidly maturing as they embrace and accept the new approach to sampling musk ox (Arctic mammal), skyr curd (yoghurt-textured milk curd), pike perch (fresh-water fish with canine teeth), unripe elderberries and wood sorrel (shamrock-shaped sour weed).
Because of its cool and moist climate, Denmark has always been self-sufficient, growing potatoes, barley, berries, beetroot, rye, greens and producing dairy products. A Dane's traditional breakfast is homemade buttered bread, with cheeses such as havarti, danbo and tilsit.
Lunch can be kick-started with herrings, served with ice-cold schnapps which, according to tradition, helps the fish swim down the stomach; the high alcohol content dissolving the fat.
Open sandwiches play a big part in the middle of the day: smorrebrod is a slab of dense dark rye bread layered with assorted cold fillings. A favourite is the shooting star sandwich - two slices of buttered toast, one with steamed fish, the other with fried battered plaice, topped with shrimp, mayonnaise, sliced cucumber, caviar and lemon.
Rolling into dinner time, the Danes love Nordic fish. A rare delicacy is the Fjord shrimp, roughly the size of your smallest fingernail. Good food is a definite inclusion in the Danish culture of "hygge" - translated to "a warm, fuzzy, cozy feeling of well- being" - along with good company, music and comfortable furniture.
As Britain's Restaurant magazine stated, Copenhagen is no longer the last stop on the gastronomic subway, it is adding another dimension, not a trend.
Baby octopus, salmon, potatoes and oatmeal foam
Potato dumplings
