We Are What We Ate…
Many of us go through our days happy to enjoy the food and drink we do without thinking very much about it. As a working chef and bartender who has enjoyed cooking and eating the cuisine of many different cultures, it has been my duty and passion to discover why we like what we do, and why we dislike some things, and why others leave us indifferent.
It seems we are all attracted in varying degree to tastes we are familiar with, which is balanced by an equally strong curiosity for new sensations and for experimentation. I believe it is in this tension between the known and the unknown that our most interesting culinary experiences unfold.
We love the tastes we first knew as children, and I’m sure many of us experience great pleasure from the memories associated with the tastes and smells of our childhoods, even as our tastes have changed and become more sophisticated through experience. But it is more than memories we enjoy, as there are strong evolutionary reasons for preferring the known to the unknown, as the knowledge of foods that our ancestors found to be safe and nutritious, and how to prepare them was passed down to each new generation.
But it is our curiosity and ability to adapt that has made us so successful in this world, and there is hardly a thing that grows and lives on on earth that is not considered delicious in at least one spot, and shunned in another. Our ingenuity lead to the introduction of cooking, which many believe to be one of the most important reasons modern man has developed into what we are. It is why we have been able to populate every corner of the planet, and it is the shared and communal experience of eating and drinking that has held cultures together, and defined our differences as surely as has religion and borders, philosophies and beliefs.
So as we enjoy the comfort of the known, and the excitement of the soon to be experienced, remember that the mixture of cautiousness and curiosity of the countless numbers that lived before us made us what we are today, and will define who we become in the future. These are exciting and challenging times; will our children’s children be able to enjoy tomorrow what we take for granted today?
Dreaming about Swedish winter traditions…
In Sweden, we welcome the Christmas season with the celebration of Advent, a tradition that was imported from Germany to Sweden in the 1920s. The Advent candles seen in every Swedish home are most symbolic of this tradition. Usually 4 candles are placed in a row in a holder covered with moss and small decorations. We light the first candle on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, let it burn a little, and then light one more candle each Sunday until Christmas.
Children love to refer to their Advent calendars which have one window each day that they can open from December 1st through Christmas Eve.
One of the nicest ways to start off the Christmas season is by having a Glögg party! There are many different recipes for this hot wine and you can be creative by adding your personal touch. Of course, the spices – cinnamon, cloves and cardamom – are essential. We serve the Glögg with almonds and grapes in small glasses, accompanied by ginger snaps. I normally serve Swedish Christmas buffet tasters alongside my Glögg party at home.
Many people have their Glögg party on December 13 because it is Lucia Day. The women in the family get dressed early in the morning in white with a bright red sash and a crown with lit candles and serve coffee and Lucia buns. The Lucia rite is seen throughout the day in various forms in schools, offices, and at organized events everywhere. The Lucia celebration has become particularly famous as the Nobel Prize celebrations take part in Stockholm on this day.
One of the last nights before Christmas is devoted to the baking and cooking of candies. Saffron buns and gingerbread are the classic pastries, while “knack”, a type of homemade toffee and ice chocolate represent the classic candies. I remember as a child my mother always made a gingerbread house from scratch and placed it on a bed of cotton wool to let us imagine the snow.
Normally Santa comes in person on the evening of Christmas Eve and asks if there are any nice children there before he plunks down his sack and distributes gifts. Before that, on the morning of the 24th, children can typically find one gift already stuffed into a stocking and awaiting them when they wake up. Christmas day is a quiet day for Swedes. It starts off with a church service in the wee hours of the morning. At 3pm in the afternoon on Christmas day, every Swedish family will sit in front of the TV to watch the Donald Duck Special. This hour-long program has become as much a part of Christmas celebrations as the ham and the fish.
The “Julbord” – the Christmas buffet is a never ending feast with the compulsory ham, herring, and pickeled herring. At least 5 dishes are eaten during Christmas time popular among which are gravlax, herring, egg salad, lutfisk, or dried cooked cod dish, pig’s feet and beat salad, meatballs, Jansson’s temptation, sausages, ribs, paté, veal brawn, red cabbage and “dip in the pot”. All are served with aquavit and rounded off with rice porridge with a hidden almond.
“13de Knut” takes place on January 13 and is the day when the Christmas tree and all the decorations are removed. Not surprisingly, it is very often another excuse to have a little party…
A Summer Day with Domenique!
Compared to most parents I am lucky that my children like to sleep in late. Once they wake up though, they are very serious about their breakfasts. My daughter loves fresh blueberries and raspberries in the morning. My son, on the other hand, cannot survive without his freshly squeezed grape juice. To round out the meal both children love wholegrain organic toast with butter and jam or goat cream cheese. They also like fresh organic muesli with yogurt or milk and a soft boiled egg.
For myself, I have recently discovered a new way to prepare a bircher muesli called the Budwig cream, made according to Dr C. Kousmine’s recipe. It’s a light meal that gives me enough energy to last all the way until lunch without even a snack. Fantastic!
It is summer and we love to go out and explore the outdoor world. We enjoy visiting the nearby forest and the animals that live there. Often, we pick flowers and berries and have so much fun that it doesn’t even matter that our clothes get completely stained blue.
Afterwards, we head back for lunch . . . I cook fish and new potatoes with sour cream sauce while my kids start on their salads. They love cucumber, olives, finely cut celery sticks and grated carrots as long as it is covered with my home-made lemon dressing. I personally love a small glass of fresh carrot juice with some ginger and celery before my lunch.
When the children take their nap, I get to catch up on some work if I am lucky . . .
In the afternoon we fill their little blow-up pool with water and they jump in without any hesitation. We eat ice-creams and play and play and play. . . On days when we go on picnics or travel, we always bring some mySmoothies. While my children actually love all the flavours the preferred choice is the blueberry, I think it is the packaging they like the most. For them it is a special treat no different from having an ice-cream.
Dinner is either a pasta or whole grain basmati fried rice with mixed vegetables and ginger. Both are great “sleeping pills”. After dinner and before bath-time we go out to my vegetable garden and water the plants and cut enough herbs for the kitchen. The kids then get ready for stories and bedtime. We all dream of the fun and delicious food the next day has in store. . .
What is a Broloppet??
On July 1, 2000, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden officially inaugurated the newly-completed 7,845m long Øresund Bridge that today connects Denmark and Sweden.
To commemorate the tenth year anniversary of this important link, the Broloppet (“Bridge Run”) half-marathon was held this year on June 12, 2010. The mySmoothie contingent was strong as John Wøhlk, our Danish distributor and I, as well as a host of Tetra Pak friends participated in this celebratory event.
June in the Nordics is an unpredictable time. At the cusp of Spring and Summer, it can be warm and sunny or cold and rainy. On this particular day, I managed unfortunately to experience the whole gamut of the weather gods’ moods.
Having stayed in Malmö in Sweden the evening before, I decided to take a public bus to the finishing line where official coach buses were transporting runners from Sweden to the start-line in Denmark. Clad in my shorts and running jersey, I alighted at the bus stop only to find that I was about 3km away from where I needed to be. Perfect, I thought, I’ll have myself a pre-race warm-up jog!
As I started my jog, I began to notice that the conditions were quite windy. For all the predictions about tail-winds during the actual race into Sweden, I was now experiencing these, except as head-winds. To add insult to injury, scattered rain drops turned first into a light drizzle, then into pellets of hail. It seemed that the sky had decided to poke some fun at my expense. By the time I reached the coach bus, I was drenched with rain and sweat. Instead of being warmed-up, I was shivering and already exhausted.
Fortunately, during the actual race, there was no rain and ample tail-winds as promised. As with races of this kind, the last few kilometers were grueling and I was happy just to complete the race. As I crossed the finish-line, I only lamented that I didn’t learn about this race earlier. Otherwise, most certainly, the best-tasting Swedish smoothie would be distributed to all of us finishers in a beautiful rainbow array of Blueberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Mango, Peach, Passion, Pomegranate, and Acai!
P.S. Congrats to John for finishing in 1:35 despite a bad back and no training, blah, blah, blah. . . Thanks to Jens and the Tetra Pak team for the invite and wonderful hospitality.