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Scandinavian-danish Cuisine Was Something Quite Rustic, Mostly Known For Pastries And Smorgasbord Cuisine, Which In Itself Has Become A Joke.

-Rene Redzepi

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Scandinavian-danish Cuisine Was Something

Rene Redzepi

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Scandinavian-danish Cuisine Was Something Quite Rustic, Mostly Known For Pastries And Smorgasbord Cuisine, Which In Itself Has Become A Joke.

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21 Years Ago When I Started Cooking, To Be A Cook Meant That You Were Going To Stay In The Basement. Being A Chef, You Would Never Be On A Book Tour. You Could Never Dream That 20 Years Later On You Would Be On A Book Tour. It Wasn't A Part Of Your Dreams Because It Was Just Totally Unrealistic. When Did Cooks - Restaurant Cooks, Not Cooks That Have 15,000 Television Shows - When Did Cooks Become Part Of Pop Culture The Way They Are?

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I'm A Bit Of A Glutton - I Eat Too Much Of All That Is Good To Eat.

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I've Never Had Anything But The Freedom To Do What I Wanted Just As Long As It Made Me Happy.

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The Drive For Working Comes From Everyday Moments - The Thrill Of Experiencing A Young Cook Succeeding In What They Thought Was An Impossible Job, As Well As Guests Being Happy. I Also Love The Unknown - Discovering New Things And Trying To Make Sense Of Them.

When You Get Close To The Raw Materials And Taste Them At The Moment They Let Go Of The Soil, You Learn To Respect Them.

The First Book Was Out And For The First Time We Were On A Book Tour. Being The Son Of An Immigrant, I'd Never Dreamt Of Being On Book Tours. Suddenly The Attention Was Huge.

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Summer's The Same, Autumn Is Even More Extreme. Then Winter Is When You Sort Of Condense All Of Your Ideas. You Process All These Things And You Try To Look For New Concepts. In That Sense, Your Intuition Is In Hibernation. What You Fill Up Is Your Imagination; You Fill Up Your Memories There.

I Started To Change. It Was Sort Of A Restaurant Mid-life Crisis, You Could Say. I Lost A Lot Of Confidence, Not So Much As A Father Or As A Friend, But As A Boss, As A Chef That's To Make Decisions Throughout The Day All The Time. I Just Slowly Started Burning Out. Once You Lose Your Confidence Like That, You Start Being Angry In The Kitchen. I Couldn't Recognize Myself Anymore. I Started Writing The Journal. It Was Never Meant To Be A Book, But The Editor At Phaidon Read Parts Of It. As Editors Do, I Guess.

There's No Media Training. In Cooking School, There's Not Even Manager Training. You Learn The Fundamentals Of Cooking. Everything Else Is Learning By Doing.

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I Think That In Our Part Of The World, Scandinavia, We Are One Of The Pioneers Of Showing That Gastronomy Can Be Something - High Gastronomy Can Be Something Very, Very Present And Doesnt Have To Involve, You Know, What Is Perceived As The Normal Luxury Items That Belong In A High Gastronomy Restaurant.

Cooking, I Mean, Food, Cooking Foods Is Just Everything That I Do From Morning To Night. It's How I Choose To Live My Life: Through Cooking, People That Are In Food Culture. And I Love It.

I Had Turned Down Other Head Chef Jobs. I Didn't Want To Take Over Someone Else's Cuisine. I Wanted To Start From Scratch.

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Scandinavian-danish Cuisine Was Something Quite Rustic, Mostly Known For Pastries And Smorgasbord Cuisine, Which In Itself Has Become A Joke.

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The Traditional Roots Of Scandinavian Cuisine Are Not That Spectacular, To Say The Least. When We Write About The Traditions That We Are Inspired By, It's More Techniques Like Smoking, Preserving. Many Of Them Are Not Made To Make Food Delicious; They're Just Around So That You Can Make Food Last Through The Winter. There Isn't A Great Deal Of Tradition To Tap Into.

I Only Have The Restaurant. If I Do Other Things, It's Only To Do With The Restaurant.

You Wake Up, Your Life Is Discipline: There's Kids, Breakfast, Lunch Box, Go To Work, Discipline, Organization, Guests. Imagine The Semi-final Of Super Bowl. We Have That Every Day: Lunch And Dinner. We Play That Game. Then You Come Home And You Really Just Want To Drink A Beer. But Then You Discipline Yourself And You Have To Do This Thing, This Journal. It Was Painful But I'm So Happy I Did It. I Have Newfound Respect For People That Write.

That's How People Make Sense Of A Meeting: They Eat Something. If They Were In A Sad Moment It Would Be The Same Thing, They'd Be Eating Something. It's What Makes Life Fun. We Don't Need It To Be Delicious Or Great Or All These Things If We're Just To Survive. But It's One Of Those Things That Makes Life Fun, Livable. And The More I Submerge Myself In It, The More Fun I Seem To Have.

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