The universal local ingredient
Transcriber: Maria Pericleous
Reviewer: Chryssa Rapessi
Do you make a point of using
local ingredients in your cooking?
It used to be fancy to cook
with exotic stuff.
And the further away
it had been grown, the better.
And we wanted everything
to be available all year round.
Even a kangaroo made its way
onto the European menus.
And if you’d ask somebody
what it would taste like
they’d say that it tastes like beef.
Now, there is a reason to drag
a dead animal across the planet!
Times have changed.
It’s not that we have stopped eating
bananas or drinking coffee in Norway.
It’s just no longer cool to eat fresh,
“fresh” strawberries at Christmas.
It’s not only about the carbon footprint
and the sustainability,
it’s that we have become so much
more aware of how much better food tastes
when it’s not been
wrapped in plastic for weeks
and shipped around the planet.
And we have also discovered
that our own regions
have a wide variety
of high quality produce to offer.
Fruits, vegetables, dairy,
poultry, fish, you name it.
I’ve discovered one ingredient
that is both local and universal.
It’s something that we use
in every meal that we prepare.
From a small sandwich to a state banquet.
That ingredient is time.
No, not thyme.
Time: time is a local ingredient.
If you take an egg
and boil it at sea level,
it will take seven minutes
to be medium boiled.
It will take you 15 to 20 minutes
in the higher mountains.
Geography can have a measurable
impact on your cooking.
How well something grows
also depends on the local conditions.
Take the strawberries.
In the cool Norwegian summers,
with 24-hour daylight from May onwards,
they take their time.
They have a very short period
to develop their taste
and also develop their sweetness.
In warmer climates,
they have a different life cycle.
They mature two months earlier,
have a different size,
different texture and different taste.
Time is a local ingredient.
Local time is also about the species.
We make prosciutto
from a sturdy breed of pig
that lives outside most of the year,
with a lot of space to frolic.
These pigs grow slowly
but they lead a happy life
and live four times longer
than most farmed pigs.
It’s not a fast money machine.
It’s obviously a bit more expensive,
but I’d rather eat one slice of prosciutto
full of very slow local time
than 10 from a fast mass production.
I’ll eat it slower, too.
It’s worth my time.
Local time is also about waiting time.
Sure, we could go and buy imported
strawberries all year round,
but would that make us happy?
I believe that we would miss out
on the flavor of waiting time.
The longing, the anticipation,
the excitement,
they all add to the flavor
of the strawberries,
local strawberries,
once they are finally back.
It’s like the first kiss of a lover
who has been away for a while.
The end of the season
also adds its flavor.
A hint of melancholy
intensifies the experience.
Savor the last strawberries
slowly and consciously.
It’s like the last kiss of a lover
who is leaving on a jet plane.
Sure, you could go and kiss
other people in the meantime,
but would that make you happy?
Knowing that those kisses
will never be as sweet,
never as tender or never as spicy?
I believe that the best kisses
are worth waiting for,
and so are next year’s local strawberries.
I’ve learned how important
the ingredient of local time is.
I grew up in a coastal town
of Norway called Ålesund.
I became an apprentice
at a seafood restaurant.
Soon enough, Ålesund became too small.
I wanted to explore the wide world.
I wanted to learn from the best chefs
in the most famous restaurants.
I worked in Germany
and Austria and Australia,
ended up as a chef in a big city
elegant gourmet restaurant
in Zurich, Switzerland.
Six years ago, I came back,
not to a big city or a small town,
but to a remote village
in a remote region of Norway.
To some or to most, that qualifies
to being in the middle of nowhere.
But for me and my family
it is the middle of our world.
In my new job I was committed
to be using as much
local produce as possible.
Blueberries, herbs, mushrooms,
they were all waiting outside
in a forest to be picked.
I went to talk to the local farmers,
local fishermen and local hunters.
I wanted to see what they could offer.
It was more than I expected.
So I was quite happy.
But something didn’t feel quite right.
And then it struck me.
For all the local produce
that was entering my kitchen,
I was still working in a big city,
elegant, gourmet restaurant time.
As an example, I’ve been trained
to serve up to nine course dinners.
Each course would consist
of many components.
All to be assembled in an artful way.
It would take over a minute
of somebody’s time
to plate one single dish.
The dishes look spectacular.
It was what the surroundings expected,
what the finest crystal,
best china, silver and silk required.
But in my new role that was awkward.
It was more than awkward.
Let’s do the math.
Nine plates per person,
all one minute of plating.
Multiply that by 80 guests,
that’s 720 minutes of dressing plates.
I now serve 25 people, three-course
dinners with far less components.
That’s twenty five guests, three-course
dinners, twenty seconds per plate.
That’s 25 minutes.
Our kitchen now spends 695 minutes less
on dressing plates.
That’s 11 and a half
working hours per meal.
One locality’s requirement is another
locality’s pointless Schnickschnack.
My new surroundings, they allowed me,
they to actually urged me
to cut out the Schnickschnack.
Of all the local ingredients,
time, local time is the one
that’s changed my cooking the most.
I did some radical changes
in the organization.
Instead of a crew of 14, we are now
a team of three in the kitchen.
We have time to talk.
I can pass on my knowledge
and I can listen to my colleagues’ ideas.
We spend very little time
unpacking produce
and disposing of plastic wrapping.
We keep it simple.
We let the ingredients
speak for themselves.
Strawberries and milk
are a marriage made in heaven.
I pick my strawberries
just an hour before I need them,
and I only pick the ones
that are ripe at that exact moment.
I serve them with an ice cream
that is made from the milk
of my neighbor’s cows.
We keep it simple.
Anything that I would add
would just spoil it.
In the big city, both the milk
and the strawberries
would be several days old.
They would need a little bit of “makeup”
to make them look more attractive.
I can now spend my time getting
the best possible produce
and exploring new ideas.
Like the day I asked the farmer
if she would grow pumpkins for me.
Pumpkins? Here?
She gave it a try.
The first year saw the birth
of two tiny pumpkins.
Giving up is not what we do around here,
when we fail, we learn.
By putting the seed
in a little pot inside,
planting them out just as
the soil had thawed,
and covering them with an airy
blanket, that did the trick.
By the third year, we saw over 100
beautiful pumpkins grown on that farm.
Against the odds.
They might take their time
to ripen, but once they do,
they reach my kitchen within minutes.
Wrapped in nothing but
the beaming smile of the farmer.
Not only do they taste sweet
and of the local soil,
they taste of optimism,
of determination and of triumph.
They taste of local time.
The amount of local ingredients
may be rather limited,
but that only boosts my imagination.
I dig out old recipes
and I give them a twist.
I can allow serendipity to do its magic.
Like today, I was out
picking moss off the rocks.
While I was decorating
the table with them,
the overwhelming scent
of forest struck me.
Maybe I can use that in the kitchen too.
I combined it with a dish I was cooking.
It was a eureka moment.
A new recipe was born,
with just a little bit of very local time.
Local time is also about
a window of opportunity.
My neighbor called me one day
and said, “Hey, you should
put kalvedans on the menu today.”
One of his cows had just calved
and there was more colostrum milk
to go round than a newborn needed.
Colostrum milk is high in protein,
and it is the main ingredient
in a traditional Scandinavian dessert.
To be savoured only in a very limited,
not exact, predictable time period.
The way my kitchen is organized,
it allows for flexibility.
I never have to close such
a window of opportunity.
Most of all, local time
is a personal ingredient.
It’s an individual ingredient.
How much time you spend in the kitchen
depends on your job situation,
depends on your family,
and it depends on your interests.
If cooking is a hobby,
you will definitely want to be
spending more time doing it.
Or maybe you just don’t
enjoy cooking, and that’s OK.
This is not a plea for everybody
to spend more time in the kitchen.
Besides, more is not necessarily better.
If you have ever been served overcooked
vegetables or mushy spaghetti,
you will know what I mean.
It’s about the right amount.
Less can be infinitely more.
It’s not my place to tell you
how you should spend your time.
If you lead a busy life,
you will not want to cook
big, elaborate meals.
If you didn’t like it in the first place
you will definitely start hating it now.
Never say you don’t have time,
you do have time.
We all have our own personal local time,
our individual ingredient.
However much or how little you have,
you can always influence
its quality and its taste.
Maybe you have more of it than you think,
maybe you need less of it than you fear,
and that’s what’s keeping you from cooking
quick, delicious healthy meals.
Scrutinize your time.
Are you really using it locally?
Who knows, before you know it
you may be growing and harvesting
time against the odds.
Local time may be the most precious
ingredient that we have.
Embrace it, cherish it and spend it well.
Thank you.
(Applause)