Scandinavian food: Noma's dark Viking fights for Nordic cause Telegraph.co.uk
Standing at traffic lights, I looked at my companions left and right. “These,” I thought happily, “are my people.” My Danish cohorts were not textbook Vikings, thank heavens. Many shared my Eeyore colouring. Redzepi has the darkest, dark brown hair – looks inherited from his Macedonian father. When the sultry Baltic gene met palmy Nordic, the Baltic pigment won. On taste, however, Redzepi’s inner Viking roared.
Redzepi’s triumph using only Nordic ingredients has put Scandinavia on the global food map. Now critics rhapsodise over cloudberries, rather than tomatoes, and musk ox instead of pancetta. Juniper, rosehip, beech leaf shoots and sour milk are replacing rosemary, capers, basil and ricotta. For vongole, eat horse mussels, for durum wheat, rye.
Let’s not get carried away. On the last point I have to take serious issue. Danish open sandwiches that consist of a soggy rye bedroll under defrosting prawns have no place in my lunch box. Nor does crispbread, though my fingers occasionally rustle around in a packet of Dr Karg’s German crackers.




