Orange almond cake, petite madeleine Escribà Barcelona

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Spanish orange almond cake: a variation of the sémola bizcocho de almendras.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro 2014

It was the search for that perfect xocolata calenta in Barcelona 2011 on a weekday morning that found me wandering the streets of El Raval in the neighbourhood of Ciutat Vella, also known as Barrio Xinès or Barrio Chino, close to the quarters of Barri Gòtic, that landed me tasting the most wonderful variation of the Eurasian semolina almond cake, infused with orange.

Working on the batter of this cake, I can’t help but return to the words of the protagonist in Proust’s Swann’s Way, the first of seven volumes to À la recherche du temps perdu (published between 1913-1927), on when the petite madeleine, crumb soaked in tea, touched his lips: Continue reading “Orange almond cake, petite madeleine Escribà Barcelona” →

Free trade and making friends, Xwine.se at Passion för Mat 2014

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Daniel Eliasson, xwine, Passion för Mat 2014

Daniel Eliasson, xwine.se, with Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, at Passion för Mat 2014.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

In 2007 the rules of the game were changed when it came to importing and selling wine in Sweden. That year EU ruled in favour of the individual’s right to trade freely between Member States [1], and suddenly anyone could import their own wine without the Swedish governmental monopoly ‘Systembolaget’ having any say in what or from whom.

The Xwine company was founded almost immediately upon that. The idea is a simple one. Find unique vineyards in Italy and France, and offer their wines to friends and customers in Sweden. Continue reading “Free trade and making friends, Xwine.se at Passion för Mat 2014” →

Organic livestock systems based on animal welfare. H. Karlsson Charkuterier, Härryda. Passion för Mat 2014.

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Richard Rudolph (right), H. Karlssons Charkuterier

Richard Rudolph (right), H. Karlssons Charkuterier, Härryda at Passion för Mat 2014.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Rediscovering the obvious
A few years ago we were traveling in rural China well outside of the tourist trails. Here we were invited for lunch with some locals. The omelette served was so rich and tasteful it stunned me, I had never had such a good omelette at any more urban hotel or restaurant. I realized I just needed to know the secret and asked our host, thinking there must be a secret ingredient, how this fantastic omelette had been prepared. As a reply, I got back, a blank stare. – You do like this, she said. You take two eggs and your chopsticks, and then you stir, like this … (whip, whip, whip … )

It was not before we came back out on the land outside the house that I noticed a whole bunch of free roaming hens, picking and eating whatever they found on the ground and doing what hens do. I realized that was the entire secret, happy hens, left alone living together with humans, not as an industrial production unit.

So when it comes to food production and consumption, something that fundamentally affects our lives and eco-systems, while it seems that some parts of the world have seen its third global shift, there remains a constant struggle today, to reconcile the different perspectives of how humans should and can manage their environment in an integrated, ecological manner that puts them not at the top of the food chain because that perspective is myopic and eventually self-destructive, but alongside in collaboration with all other food chains and eco-systems [1].
Continue reading “Organic livestock systems based on animal welfare. H. Karlsson Charkuterier, Härryda. Passion för Mat 2014.” →

Reblochon – fromage de dévotion! France Fromage, Passion för Mat 2014

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Maria Six, France Fromage

Maria Six, France Fromage, Passion för Mat 2014
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Some things in life, are unexplainably uncanny. Like my first time landing at the airport in Shanghai. As I stepped into the arrival hall, I saw two formally dressed individuals, one of whom held a name card that read, “Cheryl CAMPBELL”. Without pause, I found myself walking right up to them:

“Are you looking for me?” I asked curiously, careful not to mention my last name.

“You from Gothenburg?”

“Yes, from Gothenburg.”

“You, Cheryl Campbell?”

I hesitated a heartbeat, then answered, “Yes, that’s me, Cheryl, from Gothenburg.”

“Ah! Cheryl CAMPBELL! It’s a pleasure meeting you!”

I smiled, returned the warm greeting and said very little thereafter.

Then there were my days in Barcelona in 2011, where depending on which route I took to the IESE Business School, I would find myself every morning, walking past two different monasteries, one was a Carmelite Order, an order devoted to silence, contemplation and reflection, and the other with a heritage in the Order of Saint Clare / the Second Order of St. Francis of Assisi.

At the most superficial of coincidences of my days in Barcelona, my parents had wanted me to become a nun of the Carmelite Order. I also grew up in a convent founded by a Minim Friar, St. Francis of Paola (1416-1507), named in honour after St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226).

During these days, was that visit to Santa Maria de Montserrat, a Benedictine abbey located on the mountain of Montserrat, about forty-eight kilometres from Barcelona, where I found the most delightful of cheeses crafted by the monks themselves.

So I couldn’t help but muse when for several years in a row at Passion för Mat, whenever I meet with Jacques and Maria Six of France Fromage who specialise in fine cheeses, they seem to place in front of me, specific types of cheeses related to my life’s travels somehow. This year, when Jacques pulled us aside to relate the story of Reblochon, fromage de dévotion, I almost stared at him in disbelief.
Continue reading “Reblochon – fromage de dévotion! France Fromage, Passion för Mat 2014” →

Towards agglomerating tacit knowledge and regional expertise: Ted Österlin, Noble House Sushi, Passion för Mat 2014

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Ted Joakim Österlin, Noble House, Gothenburg

Ted Österlin, CEO / Owner of Noble House AB.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Introduction: knowledge intensive economies
Whilst manufacturing production in many OECD countries has declined in recent decades, services however, are on the rise. On average services now account for about 70 percent of OECD GDP. The culinary and gastronomy industry lies within the grey area in the definition of OECD-WTO Trade in Value Added (TiVA) derived from services embodied in the exports of manufactured goods. In the case of Sweden, the country’s services sector has continued to grow from the early 2000s, when its share of the workforce employed within services increased from 67 to 75.2 percent just between the years of 1989 and 2003. Today, Sweden has about 42 percent of its workforce in services-related occupations in manufacturing [1].

In the past decade, the debate on creativity as a driving force for regional economic development in the context of the third wave of globalisation within the academic realm of international business studies has been increasing [2,3,4,5].

Empirical findings seem to point towards that knowledge and service oriented economies have three characteristics in common that encourage innovation:

  • First, is the need for firms over time, to reduce technical and economic uncertainty.
  • Second, interactions with outside parties are necessary.
  • Finally, immediate presence and face-to-face contact remains important because of trust building and tacit knowledge transfer [6].

These three points converge in constellations of individuals who share similar values and world views, firms in industrial clusters or other agglomerations of various kinds. The continuous interlocution between people, place and firm, is what drives a region and gives it its brand. In the past few years, the city of Gothenburg has focused its efforts on being the centre of gastronomic activities. It is currently recognised as Sweden’s Culinary Capital, and September 21-24 will see the city host the World Food Travel Summit with the theme, New Wave in Food Tourism.

It is in this context of Sweden’s growing services industry, and the exchange of knowledge between Sweden and Asia / South-east Asia, that I met with CEO and Owner of Noble House AB, Ted Österlin, at this year’s Passion för Mat.
Continue reading “Towards agglomerating tacit knowledge and regional expertise: Ted Österlin, Noble House Sushi, Passion för Mat 2014” →

Fredrikssons Smakhantverk Öland, Passion för Mat 2014

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Marmalade from Fredrikssons in Öland.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Beautifully crafted jars piled in pyramid form, lit from their feet by several spotlights made for Fredrikssons annual display at Passion för Mat 2014. It was wonderful seeing their marmalade stall teeming over with visitors, each curiously sampling the sweet concoctions with hardbread or crisps, trying to decide which of the dozen offerings of flavours they liked best.
Continue reading “Fredrikssons Smakhantverk Öland, Passion för Mat 2014” →

Evolving culinary ideology, Passion för Mat 2014

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Anders Arnell

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, with Anders Arnell.
Anders is a culinary edutainer who has a summer restaurant, “Arnell på Kajen” in Marstrand. His new book, MAT-ematikerna co-authored with Jan Tern is now out in the bookstands.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Ongoing, a part bantering of ideas, part negotiation, of a large block of crystallised Porcelana cocoa bean chocolate dating almost thirty years back, that after tempering, would render the silkiest textured chocolate. Not being able to overcome the initial realisation that I have been eating decades old chocolate, I finally got around to the main thread of talk at the table. The idea was how to keep a consistent standard of quality that at the same time, made the signature of your culinary work. Service was a given, they were all artists and experts in their own culinary field of choice, there could be no other way in this business otherwise. But in the ever increasing modularisation of the individual’s niche knowledge and skills, there came the question of the paraph that made it just that notch more exclusive for the customer:

“How would you propose I do that?”
“I told you, get this block of chocolate!”

And so it is, all part of this year’s Passion för Mat 2014 theme, Ärlig mat or True food. Food that leaves a lesser carbon footprint, a non-kitsch understanding of sustainable living and a redefining of what is luxury and exclusivity, without a mention of those words. It’s all very practical and all very Swedish.

Continue reading “Evolving culinary ideology, Passion för Mat 2014” →

A Christmas dinner 2013

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JE Nilsson, who has researched and written about 1700s Swedish food,
was happy to play Santa ‘Chef de Cuisine’.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

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Selecting first class produce is the key to all good cooking.
Here, we were planning a new orange and honey glazed spare ribs dish,
looking at blood oranges flown in from Italy.

By December every year as the days grow shorter and shorter, it is fun to spend time in the kitchen, planning and cooking Scandinavian classics, trying to recreate inherited recipes from days long gone past. The old fashioned dishes and the manners in which they are prepared, usually involve a lot of time consuming manual work, but nonetheless worth the effort in terms of rediscovering what has been and making it current again.

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Gravad lax is maybe one of the oldest dishes on the traditional Swedish Christmas table.
Today it is pickled with a mixture of salt, sugar, pepper and a generous helping of freshly cut dill.

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Once done, it is ideally eaten with a honey mustard sauce.

Continue reading “A Christmas dinner 2013” →

Coming home to Valentino’s 2013

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At Ristorante Da Valentino.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

Already when we last met, the Valtulina family hinted at that they were preparing a move to a new location. It would be a great improvement they told me, since they had seriously outgrown their family living room sized premises in the Bukit Timah area. Because of this, it was with great expectation we went to take a look at the new restaurant, Valentino’s, at Turf Club Road.

Greeted in family tradition with a warm hurricane of emotions at their door, we were whisked almost immediately, into the kitchen, where Valentino stood at the heart of it all.

I had certainly missed the Valtulina Family!

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Gianpiero Valtulina, setting up the private dining quarters of the restaurant. Gianpiero, or ‘Papa’, has been a guiding hand in the process of the building of the new place. His influence and finishing touches can be seen in the beautiful decorations furnishing the home and restaurant.

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The private room here can seat about forty-five persons. Perfect for that larger family or corporate event.

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With so much movement in the place, I couldn’t help wanting to capture all details on camera, from the rustic brick enclaves in the main dining hall to the stash of deliciously piled ripened tomatoes and garlic that sat in proximity to various cheeses all carefully stored.

It took about a half hour to orientate myself in the new expansive place, from walk-in freezers to the various bakery and kitchens, the main dining hall and the Valentino Garden outdoors that already housed a healthy citrus tree, to finally sit down and come to process the information and impression of their new restaurant. Continue reading “Coming home to Valentino’s 2013” →

Trattoria Capri, Singapore 2013

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From the left, Adriano Iannone, La Braceria and Limoncello,
Daniele Devillanova (chef) and Luca Iannone, Trattoria Capri at Binjai Park, Singapore.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It’s been just about two years since my last visit to Trattoria and Pizzeria Capri in Singapore. In the ever changing landscape of Singapore, it’s a relief to step into Capri again, to find friendly and familiar faces and to pick up the conversation where it was left off, with hardly a glitch.

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Interior of Capri with tiles of the Amalfi Coast, home of the Iannone family.

Much of our conversation revolved as usual around the different types of Italian food by region. Continue reading “Trattoria Capri, Singapore 2013″ →