1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,960 Hi everyone, welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:13,080 Today we're here at KU, the Department of Food Science with Professor Michael Bonfrost. 3 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:19,060 And we're going to talk a little bit about how Copenhagen developed as a food destination. 4 00:00:19,060 --> 00:00:21,240 So welcome, Professor, nice to have you here. 5 00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:28,000 At this lovely library, we were checking a little bit of the books, a super nice selection. 6 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:34,000 So first of all, we wanted to know a little bit how this developed, what happened here in Copenhagen. 7 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:44,040 Is it true that 30 years ago, well, at least in my experience, the city or the country was not at all in the conversation of fine dining or food? 8 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:46,000 What happened there? 9 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:55,040 I think, we can say there was a lot of bamboo growth happening before the new Nordic food manifesto. 10 00:00:55,040 --> 00:01:03,080 There were many things popping up, a few frontrunners were developing an advanced speed on what should we do. 11 00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:09,040 And that was both in beer, in bakeries, flour, in restaurants. 12 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:20,040 So I think it happened sort of simultaneously in a number of different areas that there was an interest in having more delightful presences. 13 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:27,080 And I think what sparked it was different actors, among them Klaus Meyer coming with what was seen abroad. 14 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:36,080 That food could be a source of joy and food we could have a higher quality than we were used to having in our homes in a Danish setting. 15 00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:43,080 I think one of the classical sayings is that we used to sell the good stuff and eat the bad stuff ourselves. 16 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:50,080 Traditionally, we've been an exporter of pork, particularly bacon and butter and other dairy products. 17 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:54,080 And we kept the leftovers and used that for our food. 18 00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:58,080 So that's sort of a historical, ah, okay, that's what we did. 19 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,080 Of course, it's an exaggeration, but it's a very good framing of that. 20 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:06,080 It wasn't really the focus of that we should eat well in Denmark. 21 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:13,080 Of course, there were a few people doing it and the trailblazers were already there in the 70s with them. 22 00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:23,080 In the chef's world, there was Erwin Lauterbach and Søren Geerike, who were championing this idea that we could have a much better food scene in Copenhagen than what we had. 23 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,080 You mentioned Klaus Meyer. 24 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:39,080 Well, he was making bakery business, but he was also an activist and he was also a catalyser of the New Nordic with the opening of Noma and the New Nordic Manifesto. 25 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:40,080 What can you comment on that? 26 00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:43,080 I think he knows the stories much better than I do. 27 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:50,080 In the scene, there was also, you can say, the Danish Academy for Gastronomy, which is a private small organization. 28 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:58,080 They were advocating for that we should have a house of food or Madenshus in Copenhagen funded by the government. 29 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:03,080 Everything was in place, but then we had a shift of government in 2001. 30 00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:11,080 It was derailed and put back into the drawer so that no one was advocating for that. 31 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:15,080 There were quite a number of people who were saying, okay, they had an interest in food. 32 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:23,080 They were people who enjoyed food, like the former EU commissioner and mayor of Copenhagen, Red Berger. 33 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:30,080 She was also part of this movement to say, let's get more emphasis on high quality foods in Denmark and in Copenhagen. 34 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:37,080 If I'm not wrong, Noma opened in 2004 and 2005, the Manifesto was written. 35 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:40,080 Noma opened in 2003, as far as I remember. 36 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:47,080 I remember very vividly that the Manifesto, they met and created the Manifesto in November 2004, 37 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:50,080 because I couldn't participate in the meeting. 38 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:56,080 I was traveling in Korea for months and they were having it exactly in November of 2020. 39 00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:59,080 What challenges did it look to address, the Manifesto? 40 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:05,080 I think the inspiration came from the film world, the Danish Dogma movies. 41 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:14,080 They were reinventing filmmaking in Denmark, saying that we should focus on having a more raw presence. 42 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:21,080 They had dogmatic rules about how you could make films that included that you should only use natural light. 43 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:24,080 The actors should bring their own clothing and so on. 44 00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:29,080 A number of films were created that way and some of them were nominated for prizes. 45 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:31,080 I can't remember how many of them won. 46 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:35,080 It was a spark to say, maybe we can do this with food also. 47 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:37,080 So they made a Dogma or a Manifesto. 48 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:41,080 With strict rules, only using local produce? 49 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:45,080 I wouldn't say that there were strict rules, but it was more like, this is what we would like to do. 50 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:56,080 The Nordic region is known for purity, for a nice, good climate, in terms of that we were environmentally concerned quite early. 51 00:04:56,080 --> 00:05:03,080 So people would be seeing the food that came from our areas as something that could be more pristine. 52 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:10,080 If you take the Scandinavian peninsula and Finland and the North Atlantic parts of the Nordic region, 53 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:14,080 so the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, it's an enormous area. 54 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:20,080 The diversity there and the cultural connections were there to get food from one place to another. 55 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:25,080 If you read the first Nomad Cookbook, it's also said that to start Nomad Klaus and René, 56 00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:28,080 they went to the Faroe Islands to get inspirations. 57 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:33,080 They saw something completely different than what they had expected when it came to produce. 58 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:36,080 I think that was part of the, that was built into the Manifesto, 59 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:42,080 that we really have to make a representation of the landscape that we have in the Nordics. 60 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:50,080 And then a few years later, it became kind of like a political tool of territorial development of the region, 61 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:55,080 like to get funding, for instance, to open the Nordic Food Lab and all these initiatives, 62 00:05:55,080 --> 00:06:01,080 also Mads Impulsions and all of this. What happened there? What changed exactly at that point? 63 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:03,080 Let me see if I can remember everything correctly. 64 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:11,080 But the new Nordic Food Manifesto sparked the creation and writing of a report from the Nordic Council of Ministers, 65 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:18,080 which is a collaboration organization between all of the Nordic countries, all eight countries and independent territories. 66 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:25,080 The Åland, Faroe Islands, Greenland, and then Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, right? 67 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:29,080 So they're eight member countries and independent territories. 68 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:34,080 One of the actors in there was Lisa Lise Løkke-Stefansson, who was politically appointed. 69 00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:40,080 She was promoting, let's say, the Nordic region as a region of growth. 70 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:47,080 She picked up on that we could use food, or not her alone, but people inside the organization picked up that we could use food as a tool. 71 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:54,080 So she created with others inside the Nordic Council of Ministers, they wrote a report showing the perspective. 72 00:06:54,080 --> 00:07:02,080 And then several of the ministers of food and agriculture around in the different countries saw the potential in that and said, 73 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:12,080 let's work more in this direction to create a new Nordic cuisine and a new effort to promote new Nordic food. 74 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:20,080 And also at that time, or more or less the same time, it was the article on Time magazine that was on the cover. 75 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:22,080 I don't know if you remember about that. 76 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:23,080 With Rene Rebsenbi? 77 00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:24,080 Yeah, exactly. 78 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:31,080 I think it coincided with a rise in the celebrity chef that chefs became pinnacles of, 79 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:35,080 okay, they are actually very connected to the natural world. 80 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:43,080 And they had helped us form a bridge between a disconnected, alienated urban existence and the world as it is. 81 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:47,080 So it was not him alone, but it was like Ferdinand Drea and... 82 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:48,080 Had some romance out of it. 83 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,080 Yeah, Aleksa Thaler. 84 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:51,080 Oh, yeah. 85 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:53,080 There were the three that were on the cover. 86 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:54,080 Ah, yeah, exactly. 87 00:07:54,080 --> 00:08:02,080 And that was sort of foraging and connecting nature and city, the raw materials with the guests. 88 00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:11,080 And so I think there were several types of activities that can say created a co-emergence of the boom here, right? 89 00:08:11,080 --> 00:08:16,080 And was it in this context that the Nordic Food Lab was created? 90 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:20,080 The creation of the Nordic Food Lab relates to that. 91 00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:28,080 Some of the people behind the new Nordic Food Manifesto in Klaus Mayer's organization, Mayer Food, 92 00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:38,080 they sat down to write a proposal for the new Nordic Councils because they had a program for promotion of industrial activities 93 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,080 with a particular Nordic angle. 94 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:48,080 And they applied for, I think it was 350,000 kroner or something to start Nordic Food Lab for. 95 00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:57,080 And the first thing that they got when they had the 350,000 kroner was to get an extra grant from the Nuderia Foundation to get it running. 96 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:07,080 So they had a good starting pool of around 3.5 million, which is around a little less than 0.5 million euro to get it started, 97 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:11,080 to build the place, to work together and to create the organization. 98 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:17,080 And what was the goal of the Nordic Food Lab? To discover and novel Nordic foods? 99 00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:20,080 You know, it was to rediscover and develop. 100 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:30,080 So if you have an ingredient, I mean, an ingredient in itself sometimes needs a lot of research before it becomes a central raw material in the cuisine. 101 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:37,080 So the discovery of what was in the Nordic landscapes, some of the early works that I remember, I was part of. 102 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:45,080 So you had the Nordic Food Lab, there were a few people hired, there was a board of directors, and then there was an innovation board. 103 00:09:45,080 --> 00:09:47,080 And I was part of the innovation board. 104 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:54,080 So we heard about what was happening and we gave inputs and we would also help them in different ways, right? 105 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:55,080 No. 106 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:57,080 Support them in different ways. 107 00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:08,080 Initially, there was like, what do we have in the gene bank, in the Nordic gene bank, which is just across Copenhagen on the Swedish side, just north of Malmö in Alenap. 108 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:10,080 That's where the gene bank is. 109 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:20,080 And not coincidentally, but it's actually led by Lisa Lykke-Stef, who was the main author of the first new Nordic food report in the Nordic Council of Ministers. 110 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:33,080 So they were getting materials old, underutilized or forgotten varieties of plants and using them to explore what could they do of different types. 111 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,080 I remember potatoes, I remember other types. 112 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:40,080 So they were working on this from a very exploratory point of view. What could they be used for? 113 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:44,080 How were they different from what was in the market? 114 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:48,080 The conformity of the industrial scale production. 115 00:10:48,080 --> 00:11:03,080 And I was just talking with Phil, who is not today here, about I think one of the most tangible changes you can see in the culinary landscape worldwide that came out of the new Nordic movement 116 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:09,080 was that before the movement, fermentation was not such a big deal. 117 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:14,080 People would maybe one restaurant in a while would do some pickles or some sauerkraut and that was it. 118 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:21,080 And suddenly it became something that everybody's doing, fermenting all kinds of things because there was a lack of technical knowledge about it. 119 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:26,080 Was this something that was boosted by the Nordic Food Lab or was it Nome itself? 120 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:37,080 We did a lot of fermentation at Nordic Food Lab and some of the fermentations were unsuccessful and others became mainstays of what's happening in current gastronomy. 121 00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:48,080 So if you look at Miso and the garden production, I mean that started in Nordic Food Lab, that we started producing them already in 2012. 122 00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:52,080 And somewhere in a souvenir box, I have a few of them still. 123 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:58,080 But of course Nome, everyone was starting to do fermentation, to make vinegars and so on. 124 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:02,080 And I think what was special was that we displayed so much of how to do it. 125 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:11,080 We gave information via the blog so that everyone could take it up and create the same, not the same, but variants of the produce themselves. 126 00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:20,080 Beautiful things were happening there in terms of saying also like very long-term projects where you can say this is just to show what goes on. 127 00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:25,080 We had a head of culinary innovation at some time was Ben Reed. 128 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:29,080 And he came with a background. 129 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:38,080 He was doing a bachelor's degree at University of Gastronomic Sciences and came to Nordic Food Lab to intern and to do his bachelor thesis. 130 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:44,080 And he was incredibly productive and him and Lars Williams together came up with some of them all. 131 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:48,080 They were very good and with very little investment. 132 00:12:48,080 --> 00:13:00,080 What can we make? They made fermentation boxes where you would use like floor, undercover floor heating and a thermostat to regulate temperature. 133 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:08,080 So you had an opportunity to be systematic about it and adjust, not just let it run wild, but let it go well. 134 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,080 And we published, Ben, he wrote a lot. 135 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:15,080 And we published all of that in the beginning of 2012 on Nordic Food Lab's website. 136 00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:19,080 So it was like a whole body of a lot of fermentation that came out there. 137 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:29,080 And that was his bachelor degree thesis from University of Gastronomic Sciences that was transformed into a blog post as well. 138 00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:37,080 So I don't think there were anyone else who had sort of systematically say let's do this and let's write it up and let's share it with others. 139 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:49,080 Yeah, I've heard that also Noma itself that many of the things that happened came out of chaos that at the beginning there was a lot of discussion, a lot of unplanned things, but everybody giving its best. 140 00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:52,080 And that's kind of how it developed. 141 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:57,080 The first fermentation area that Noma had was an attic. 142 00:13:57,080 --> 00:13:59,080 So it wasn't very controlled. Right. 143 00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,080 And at Nordic Food Lab, we had the houseboat. 144 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:08,080 I think the temperatures were, I know that the temperatures were a bit lower because we had the sea. 145 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:13,080 So in the basement, it was pretty stable what the temperature was. 146 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:24,080 And then I think in late in 2013 or something like that, Noma invested in containers to create the first fermentation lab, right? 147 00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:30,080 Where they would have people come and work systematically on optimizing their fermentations. 148 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:39,080 Ariel Johnson and then David Silva, they were I think the first two that were working and Lars Williams, they were the first that were working there. 149 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:42,080 First, Lars Williams and Ariel. 150 00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:50,080 And then Lars moved on to a different position and Ariel, sorry, and David Silva I think moved more in the fermentation lab direction. 151 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,080 Okay. 152 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:56,080 And another profile that I think it's interesting, we wanted to interview him. 153 00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:02,080 Unfortunately, it wasn't possible during this trip, is Mark Emil because he's like an anthropologist. 154 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:05,080 What's the role of an anthropologist in the Nordic Food Lab? 155 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:12,080 He was very instrumental in helping create the first ideas of how we should do research on insects. 156 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:13,080 On insects. Okay. 157 00:15:13,080 --> 00:15:23,080 We worked on this and then started with an idea that at the first matching potion, Alexa Tala, he was presenting a story about how in the Amazon, 158 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,080 insects were really part of what was going on. 159 00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:31,080 It was part of the larder, the part of the normal ingredients that you would use. 160 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:37,080 And he showed some examples of how he tried to introduce that into his cuisine. 161 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:43,080 And the chefs around and he said, why can't we serve insects in our restaurant? 162 00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:49,080 So we took that up in Nordic Food Lab and initially worked with just a shoestring budget. 163 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:57,080 What could we do? And then eventually, together with Mark Emil, we wrote a grant application and we pitched it to a foundation. 164 00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:02,080 And we got a grant where we could systematically explore the deliciousness of insects. 165 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:08,080 So what were the findings regarding insects? 166 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:18,080 At the time, FAO had published a report about it was actually a small committee in a program about 167 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:20,080 non-wood forest products. 168 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:29,080 What kind of crops and what kind of resources can you extract from forest that isn't wood? 169 00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:34,080 And part of that was insects, to use insects as a food source. 170 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:37,080 And that report was quite published. 171 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:42,080 For some years, it was the most downloaded publications from FAO. 172 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:49,080 So it seemed like there was a need and there was a lot of people interested in this as a new protein source. 173 00:16:49,080 --> 00:17:00,080 At that time, it wasn't widely known how large the environmental consequences of animal-based farming was. 174 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:04,080 So it was a way of... These were the first reports. 175 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:12,080 I think it was another report from FAO called The Long Shadow of Animal Farming or Husbandry. 176 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:15,080 I can't remember exactly the framing of the report. 177 00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:22,080 There was a starting understanding of we need to do something about the amount where we get our protein from. 178 00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:30,080 And it will be unsustainable to maintain a high level of animal production or animal-based food production. 179 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,080 So insects came up as one of the solutions that could be explored. 180 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:38,080 If you take a global perspective, insects are already eaten in many different countries. 181 00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:44,080 And by Arnold Van Hooijs, he was a member of the advisory board for our project on insects. 182 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:49,080 And he said he remembered that it was put in the report that around 2 billion people eat insects. 183 00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:52,080 But there was a generous estimate. 184 00:17:52,080 --> 00:18:00,080 He would say that about 2 billion people had tried to eat insects and lived in cultures where eating insects was something that happened. 185 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:07,080 A fraction of those people would eat insects regularly or they would be a substantial part of their protein sources. 186 00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:16,080 So what we did in Deliciousness of Insects project was to explore the understanding that these communities that used insects had. 187 00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:21,080 So there was part of an anthropological field study going to the places. 188 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:31,080 Josh Evans and Ben Reed and later also Roberto Florida, they were traveling to different regions in the world exploring the insect astronomy there 189 00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:40,080 and trying to understand it better to see how we could transform that into something to understand the principles of how does insects as ingredients, 190 00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:45,080 how do they work in menus, in dishes and so on. 191 00:18:45,080 --> 00:18:53,080 And we worked a lot on this, both students working on it and chefs working in the kitchen 192 00:18:53,080 --> 00:19:03,080 and people researching the way that consumers or diners or normal people cooking with insects, how they interacted with it and so on. 193 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:06,080 And what you could do to promote this whole field. 194 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:11,080 And we took the perspective of saying let's not consider insects as just a protein source, 195 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:16,080 but actually what are the delicious elements that insects bring to the food. 196 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:23,080 So we focused a lot on that, which was a very different perspective than the majority of other researchers were more looking into. 197 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:26,080 How can we hide insects as much as possible? 198 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:38,080 Other researchers and other actors were, how can we produce as much insects as possible and hide it so that it becomes just an underswept protein source? 199 00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:49,080 And I think my interpretation of it is also that at the time it would be an arms race between insects, artificial meat and plant-based alternatives. 200 00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,080 And I think now, if you look at the... 201 00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:54,080 It's what is happening right now, right? 202 00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:56,080 Yeah, what has been going on for 10 years. 203 00:19:56,080 --> 00:20:04,080 And I think the plant-based alternatives have won, if you want to say in terms of it, for the lab-grown meat producers, et cetera. 204 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,080 But if you look at the volume, then... 205 00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:08,080 And the cost also, yeah. 206 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:18,080 The controversy around it, also both insects and lab-grown, there's a discussion about it while in plant-based it's not like everybody's okay with having that. 207 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:27,080 The advantage of the plant-based is that the sources are available readily in many places where it still takes a lot of research to scale up lab-grown meat. 208 00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:29,080 Exactly, yeah. 209 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:42,080 And you can say based on earlier work in food science and technology on soil already dating back from the 80s, you had a lot of knowledge of what you could do with plant-based proteins. 210 00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:49,080 I mean, as you see now, this is the area, but the challenge is then I think consumers, we've done some research on this. 211 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,080 Just last year, that consumers are... 212 00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:55,080 There are some people that are more skeptical towards using. 213 00:20:55,080 --> 00:21:04,080 They're concerned about the level of processing and they're concerned about the health of the foods that are the plant-based alternatives that are coming out. 214 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:09,080 And I think that we also have to build trust for this category of food as well. 215 00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:12,080 But back to insects, we can say we were one of the... 216 00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:16,080 We were in the vanguard of trying to promote insects as a food source. 217 00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:29,080 And I think that was very... It was super interesting for me as a sensory scientist because it relates to how do we convey, how do we convince people that they should try foods that they haven't tried before. 218 00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:36,080 And insects in particular was a real challenge because of association with disgust and diseases and filthiness and so on. 219 00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:43,080 So we did our best to show the beauty of insects and the aesthetics of insects in that aspect. 220 00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:49,080 Yeah, it can be really impressive. I've tried ants that taste like lemon or these different things. 221 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:54,080 And I know also that in the Nordic food labs, there were like ant gin or the... 222 00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:55,080 Ants, yeah. 223 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,080 There's a little bottle left up here. 224 00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:05,080 Joint collaboration with the Cambridgeson Distillery won an Innovation Award for best, most innovative spirit in 2015. 225 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:10,080 This book is also like a consequence of all the research you were just mentioning. 226 00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:13,080 So besides insects, fermentation... 227 00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:14,080 A lot of work on seaweed. 228 00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:17,080 One of the board of directors was Ole Morgensen. 229 00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:25,080 And he became, I would say, he had an interest in Japanese food long before anything existed. 230 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:32,080 He was living in Seattle and learned to appreciate sushi and Japanese food in general. 231 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,080 And he's been a big promoter of Japanese food for many years. 232 00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:44,080 So he was appointed as one of the board of directors and he was also active in getting funding for projects that seaweed was part of, 233 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:46,080 were the ingredients that were worked on. 234 00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,080 So we've done some very interesting work on that. 235 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:56,080 When it comes to research funding and when it comes to finding a way in the world for projects that you're doing, 236 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,080 it's an advance to be at the right time. 237 00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:05,080 Sometimes you're too much ahead of the schedule and sometimes you're lacking behind others. 238 00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:09,080 And with the algae research that we were trying to do, 239 00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:15,080 we really spent a lot of time, already from 2008 and 2015, 240 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:24,080 trying to get funding for doing gastronomic research, doing food-related research on algae. 241 00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:27,080 And then he gave up and said, OK, I'm not having it anymore. 242 00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:35,080 Apparently, there's no interest in the Danish funding environment to support this. 243 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,080 Now there's a lot happening. 244 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:38,080 Around out there. 245 00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:39,080 Yeah, OK. 246 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:47,080 We were a bit too early then, but there were some successful products and a few projects that were funded that created some interesting. 247 00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:53,080 And from a gastronomic point of view, some of my favorite dishes were containing dahlsa. 248 00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:57,080 That was William C. He made an ice cream based on dahlsa. 249 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:00,080 But the flavor was the seaweed dahlsa. 250 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,080 Amazing dish with algae and adnoma. 251 00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:08,080 It was algae with truffles and mustard, like a super crazy combination. 252 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:09,080 It was incredible. 253 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:15,080 And now we have farmers, growers and harvesters. 254 00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:23,080 There are a few companies that are living off producing algae for food consumption in Denmark. 255 00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:28,080 I also wanted to know what is the legal status of insects right now in Denmark? 256 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,080 Is it legal to produce them and consume them? 257 00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:38,080 I think as far as I remember, there are five insects that are approved to produce as food for humans. 258 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,080 But then there are some others that are also produced as feed. 259 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:52,080 My evaluation is that the northern European population, it's a lot easier to convince them to eat plant based alternatives than it is to convince them to eat insects. 260 00:24:52,080 --> 00:25:04,080 And then I would say in the circular economy and biosolutions sphere, the advances of insects is that they can upcycle ingredients that are waste, 261 00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:13,080 that would not be suitable for food and can be neither for feed and can themselves become feed. 262 00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:20,080 So that you get a higher quality protein and you get a very good use of otherwise wasted resources. 263 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:25,080 So they become feed and you could use them for chicken, you could use them for pork or whatever. 264 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:32,080 One of the big issues, we have a very large animal, particularly pork production in Denmark. 265 00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,080 And the import of soy is concerning to that. 266 00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,080 So they're looking for alternative sources. 267 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:44,080 And particularly if you are in the organic sector, it's very difficult to get certified organic soy. 268 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:54,080 So we have to be as a producer or as a farmer who wants to buy a protein rich ingredient for feed, a protein rich feed. 269 00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,080 Then you have to think about what other alternatives are there. 270 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:03,080 It's difficult to get organic plant based proteins or other types of protein. 271 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,080 So today the Nordic Food Lab doesn't exist anymore. 272 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:12,080 How was the ending of it? What is its legacy? 273 00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:19,080 You can say Nordic Food Lab existed individually from 2008 to 2014. 274 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:23,080 And then we moved in to be part of the Department of Food Science. 275 00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:30,080 I was part-time director of Nordic Food Lab and part-time associate professor here at the Department of Food Science. 276 00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,080 And I advocated that we should move Nordic Food Lab in here. 277 00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:38,080 And we thrived for a long time, say four years we were here. 278 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:45,080 And then it was quite a unique constellation of having the Nordic Food Lab advisory board. 279 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:54,080 And had a role in shaping the direction and that sort of, it was difficult to navigate in that space within the university. 280 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:59,080 I think we had one bad year of funding 2017. 281 00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,080 So the management decided to say we should end this. 282 00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:11,080 But I would say Department of Food Science was still having a lot of activities that relates to ideas that were founded at Nordic Food Lab. 283 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:21,080 So more sustainable food, upcycling waste and collaborating with chefs and creating food innovation. 284 00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:25,080 Healthy and sustainable foods that are also delicious is part of what we do now. 285 00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:30,080 So you can say it's been built into it. It didn't exist at the start. 286 00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:38,080 But now the ideas have been absorbed and are being used by many of the different entities inside of the Department of Food Science. 287 00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:45,080 And what would you say are today like the tangible consequences of the new Nordic movement? 288 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:53,080 But in the society or in normal restaurants, not only fine dining, what can be found around here in Copenhagen? 289 00:27:53,080 --> 00:28:01,080 If you look at it from the perspective of what can we see in the broad population, I made a very interesting observation last year. 290 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:09,080 In June, we did a European survey of different fermented plant-based foods or plant-based alternatives. 291 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,080 And one of them is tempeh. 292 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,080 And you could just see that the knowledge of tempeh was higher. 293 00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:19,080 The consumer knowledge of tempeh was higher in Denmark than any other place but the Netherlands, 294 00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:26,080 which is a former colonial master of Indonesia that produced tempeh as a world product. 295 00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:31,080 So you could say the early stages of creating fermented plant-based products, 296 00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:35,080 I think that is part of a legacy that lives on, right? 297 00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:44,080 That everyone, not everyone, but they're at a higher level when it comes to interest in plant-based fermented foods than many other places in Europe. 298 00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:53,080 And then I think another legacy is that if you look at the around 80 people that over the years came through Nordic Food Lab, 299 00:28:53,080 --> 00:29:02,080 many of them have gone on to create entities themselves or have learned something at Nordic Food Lab that becomes the foundation of, 300 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,080 or was a starting seed for their further careers, right? 301 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:11,080 So there are people working both with restaurants, there are people working with the food sector, 302 00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:18,080 with innovation that are producers of various high-end products that came through Nordic Food Lab. 303 00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:24,080 There was an open innovation network research carried out around Alice Waters Restaurant, 304 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:32,080 where they realized that over 40 years, there were about 270 companies that were founded by people who had been there. 305 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:38,080 Nordic Food Lab and Noma and all the others, I mean, it's probably not near that yet, 306 00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,080 but it's the same kind of tendency. 307 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:47,080 People come, they get a certain mindset, they learn something, and they use those tools to build further on their career, 308 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:54,080 which is of course, like you know, some people say that Noma became the McKinsey of the restaurant sector. 309 00:29:54,080 --> 00:30:02,080 You have to go there and work hard and earn your accolades, and then you move on and you create your own pathway based on this. 310 00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:06,080 Like if you take the consultant world or the business world, 311 00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:14,080 you need to work in one of the big consultancy firms for some time to get a big insight into many different areas of business. 312 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:20,080 And I think that's what Noma has created. And what we did at Nordic Food Lab, I think, was much more research oriented. 313 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:24,080 And what they're doing at MAD is to educate the public. 314 00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:30,080 And from that perspective, we had different roles where the research role was with Nordic Food Lab. 315 00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:36,080 Right? So if you take some of those products that needed a lot of research to exist, 316 00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:44,080 I would say that they probably, in my opinion, emerged more from Nordic Food Lab than they did from the other places.