Spring in Scandinavia By Danika Heslop

2010 Young Chef of the Year Runner Up Danika Heslop has recently moved from her the kitchen at Quay and travelled overseas to take up a position at a two michelin star resturant Bagatelle in Norway. Danika is described by her peers as intensely passionate and this passion has helped drive her rise through the kitchen ranks. She has been kind enough to share her thoughts and some pics with us.

This time of year is really special in this part of the world; there is a magical feeling in the air where everything is coming to life again, after nine months of harsh winter. The trees are flowering and growing new leaves, the sun remains visible for longer each day and most importantly the people are happy and loving the sunshine outside. A Scandinavian tradition is to drink the first beer outside since winter, in a T-shirt!

Living in Oslo, I was thinking what food reminded me of spring. In the Easter the Norwegians take a weeks’ holiday to go to their cabins (a small house in the mountain side usually passed down the family through generation to generation). When I have joined my friends at their cabins in the past we always eat Fenalår. The English translation is cured lamb leg – so a similar process to serano or prosciutto with the pig, except it is lamb. I really love this. It has a really intense salty taste, and as most of these kinds of meats, was originally done to preserve food over the cold months of the year, when finding food was difficult (in the Viking days!) This is not served with anything in particular, and I have never seen it served in a restaurant, however I think it could maybe be an entree and would taste fantastic with grilled chev (cheese) and some small pickled onions.

I am currently working as Pastry Chef at Bagatelle and the chef told me he would like to order only Norwegian cheeses, which I think is a fantastic idea, as most restaurants use French. So he put me in touch with a shop called Fenaknoken. This shop is located in the city centre, and I spoke with the owner Eirik Bræk. Wow, he is such an inspirational man, and so knowledgeable on Norwegian food. I was in the shop for about 1 1/2 hours, as he explained to me cheeses, where they were from, how they were made, and most of them even had a story on how they came about.

The most interesting cheese he gave me was called ‘Gammel Ost’ which translates into ‘old cheese’. He told me a long story of how this cheese recipe is over 1000 years old, and came from the Vikings! I can’t quite describe the taste of this cheese, it almost smells off – it is a dark, dark colour and has the texture of parmesan, maybe more flaky. I only tasted a small amount, but wow, it certainly had an interesting and strong flavour!

I learnt and tasted a lot of cheeses from all over Norway – most of them small producers. Most of them are produced from goat’s milk, the soft cheeses being my favourite. I also enjoyed a blue cheese called ‘store blåmann’, from a small town near Trondheim. Another favourite from the last time I lived in Norway is brunost (brown cheese).

Eirik also sold a lot of traditional Norwegian food other than cheese, so I took this opportunity to talk to him about fenalår. I asked him why this is most commonly eaten around the Easter... and he said the answer is very simple “because the best time of year to dry the meat is in December. In the olden days the Norwegian families would hang the fenalår in their basement at this time of year, when it was dry and too cold for bacteria to survive.” Eirik also told me it takes four months until the meat is ready, which brings you to April. That’s why to this day it is eaten at Easter.

A fellow chef friend of mine Karla, who works at Strand Restaurant in Oslo told me about a farm just outside of the city where they get all their veg from. I said I would love to see it, so we ventured off to the country last Sunday to Ramme Gaard farm in Vestby (1 hour outside Oslo). This is a gorgeous small farm specialising in 100% organic vegetables, but unfortunately the paddock was closed when we visited as the vegetables needed one more week before they could be harvested. They told us this was due to the wether being unseasonably cold – which I agreed! Spring weather in Scandinavia should be between 10 and 20 degrees, but it has been between 5 and 15. This is bad news to farmers who are unable to harvest the vegetables, however great news for summer berries as this long, slow growth for the strawberries is why they are if not the best tasting in the world. Speaking of strawberries, as we were walking around the farm, Karla kept pointing out these white flowers “You know what these are Dee?” and I said no... “These are the wild strawberries”. I had to taste a flower, just to see if it tasted like strawberry! Unfortunately for me, Karla was only playing and the flower just tasted like a flower!

The farm also had some animals, they said the animals were only used in the immediate community, for local eggs and pork, and the cow’s milk went to the local dairy, where it was used for cheese. We had a great day there, only a little disappointed we couldn’t take home some dinner!

So that about sums up spring here in scanda, there is a euphoric feeling around the city, and people seem to be happy to be outside. I’m loving, and still getting used to 11pm sun sets!

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