Passion för Mat 2012 – Highlights

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L-R: Ronny Spetz, Team Leader of the Gothenburg Culinary Team that took home the Silver Medal for Sweden in the Culinary World Cup 2010 (ref i and ii); Dan Berntsson (ref i and ii), Sweden’s leading expert on Potatoes; Leo Sieradzki, Publicity Consultant for Passion för Mat and Cheryl Marie Cordeiro.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

It’s hard to tell what I like the most with Passion för Mat 2012 (Passion for Food) at Eriksbergshallen in Gothenburg, but is has certainly made its way into my calendar as one of those must do events of the year.

Perhaps ultimately it is the socializing and meeting with all these people who love what they do, that cumulates in the air to a warmth and electric feeling of warmth and happiness that you rarely experience otherwise.
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All out Italian passion at Passion för Mat 2012, Gothenburg, Sweden

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The Burrata experience from Aldardo in Gothenburg, at Passion för Mat 2012.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

There are no words to describe the sensuous experience of cutting into the buttery softness of a genuine Italian burrata cheese – seemingly made in heaven on earth, that is Andria in Murgia in southern Italy.

Made from cow’s milk, rennet and cream, the burrata was first made in the early 1900s. After a hundred years of finding its way around the globe outside of southern Italy, it is still considered an artisan cheese because of its contradictory status of being a popular rarity that it is best consumed within 24 hours after its production. Something that adds to its air of an exclusive invitations only experience.

After having tried it in Singapore for the first time, just about two years ago with the Iannone family (ref. La Braceria i and ii), I have personally in vain searched for the burrata in Sweden. In Singapore, the popularity of the burrata has increased considerably. The fine dining restaurant No Menu for example sells 40 kgs of it a week.

And while Singapore has Giorgio Ferrari to thank for bringing in the first import of burrata (together of course with other Italian fineries of food and wine) into a country with an utmost challenging climate nonetheless, Gothenburg now finally has Aldardo.
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China changing gears towards sophisticated luxury

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Dinner in Shanghai that is about ten hours by direct flight from Sweden.
Text and Photo © PO Larsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

Shanghai’s changing cityscape is reminiscent of the changing skyline of Singapore, where every time I visit I find myself looking at a skyline that is augmented in some manner especially in Lujiazui, which also most reminds me of the Singapore quiet in the Central Business District by Raffles Quay by night.
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La dieta Mediterranea / The Mediterranean Diet by Gianluca Tognon, PhD

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Dr. Gianluca Tognon is a postdoc researcher in epidemiology and nutrition at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He also lectures at the University of Pavia (Università di Pavia) and the University of Bergamo (Università degli studi di Bergamo), Italy.

Quando dicevo che mi sarei trasferito in Svezia per studiare i benefici della dieta Mediterranea, ho strappato più di un sorriso ironico. Eppure i risultati sulla longevità degli anziani che ho pubblicato insieme con i colleghi dell’Università di Gothenburg hanno riscosso un discreto interesse e sono stati riportati da diversi blogger e giornali in diversi paesi.

Ma come è possibile che gli svedesi abbiano un’alimentazione di tipo mediterraneo? Beh, in generale, possiamo dire che una dieta ricca di cereali integrali, frutta, verdura, legumi e pesce, ma povera di carne e latticini è uno schema alimentare di tipo “mediterraneo”. Non è da dimenticare anche il fatto che questo tipo di alimentazione si associa generalmente con un consumo (moderato) di vino rosso. Chi, in una certa popolazione (che siano italiani, svedesi o americani) si avvicina più degli altri a questo schema, è sicuramente più sano e vive più a lungo degli altri.

Ed ecco quindi la buona notizia: la possibilità di esportare i benefici della dieta mediterranea anche fuori dall’area dove si è sviluppata. D’altra parte, l’area del Mediterraneo comprende una ventina di paesi diversi, ognuno con le proprie tradizioni culinarie, ciascuna basata sulle stesse regole di base che ho citato prima. I cereali ad esempio, saranno quindi rappresentati da un cous cous a Tunisi, da una pasta al pomodoro a Roma, o da una paella a Barcellona.
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Gothenburg Food Capital of Sweden 2012

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Spices such as these that are a staple in Swedish homecooking today, were once brought back to Sweden from the Far East on the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III during the 1700s that sailed from Gothenburg to Canton, China.
Text and Photo © Ted Olsson, JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

In the past five years, the height of the food scene in Gothenburg Sweden, apart from the more glamour filled annual prize giving ceremony and gala dinners held by the Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy (2010, 2008) is the Passion for Food (Passion för Mat) tradefair held in the city at Erikbergshallen, that is right next to the docks of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III.
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Soon summer along the Swedish west coast

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A little Southeast-Asia in Sweden – Swedish sampans in winter adjourn.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

In as many times as I have mentioned that I would love to be in a warmer climate…have I told too, that Sweden can be beautiful?

In this winter’s coda with the high pressure and cold, Scandinavia brings with it, azure skies clear as far as the eye brings you into the horizon. The deep blue-green gem coloured Nordic waters, undulating as music through time are now frosted with ice, broken into beautiful patterns by the hourly ploughing of the hull of the ferries that run to the minute on schedule in rhythm with the waters underneath.
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Be still, my beating heart!

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Literature from the period of Restoration England and their unsentimental comedies of the heart ironically hold one of my favourite quotations of all time. The expression of ‘beating hearts’ has had for centuries, since the late 1600s with the works of John Dryden in his The works of Virgil, been associated with the excitement and rush of adrenaline that comes with the seeing of and the taking of contact with the object of one’s amorous affections. William Mountfort’s Zelmane in 1705 contained the earliest citation for “be still my beating heart”.

About two centuries later, the expression was delivered in a comic manner in the fantastic fourth collaborative work of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera HMS Pinafore, 1878, when a lowly sailor Ralph, falls in love with the Captain’s daughter, Josephine.

Ralph:
Aye, even though Jove’s armoury were launched at the head of the audacious mortal whose lips, unhallowed by relationship, dared to breathe that precious word, yet would I breathe it once, and then perchance be silent vermore. Josephine, in one brief breath I will concentrate the hopes, the doubts, the anxious fears of six weary months. Josephine, I am a British sailor, and I love you!

Jospehine:
Sir, this audacity!
(Aside.) Oh, my heart, my beating heart!
(Aloud.) This unwarrantable presumption on the part of a common sailor!

The story turns dramatic when the Captain’s daughter in her due social rank is promised by her Captain father to a Cabinet Minister, Sir Joseph.

But as with most Gilbert and Sullivan stories, where “nothing is as it seems” and “love levels all ranks”, a twist by the end of the story lends a happy ending to all.

Closely intertwined with the romancing of hearts and souls this Valentine’s Day is the idea of a warm candlelit dinner in the heart of some place cozy…

Here, in celebration of friendship and love…a St. Valentine’s menu suggestion.

Happy Valentine’s Day to All!

A lifetime of romance in its old cut facets

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An old cut diamond weighing ca. 1.90 ct, Top Cape, VS set in white gold with 18 modern brilliant cut diamonds set halfway down each side of the shank.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

I love old cut diamonds. There’s a depth of warmth about them that comes through even in dimly lit rooms compared to their flashier modern counterparts. It’s the way the cutting interacts with the light. A softer, calmer sparkle and glow rather than the hard busy flashes of the modern cuts.

Distinctive of old cut diamonds are the larger culet as you can see in the picture, where modern brilliants will have a very small or no culet at all. Most of them are also cut cushion shaped and not perfectly round, as they were not computer assisted cuts but rather, fashioned from the cutter’s understanding of the nature and shape of the stone. Original cutters of diamonds and jewels needed to a large extent have the eye of an artist who envisioned the polished stone in its finished state in all its dazzling glory. A skill that perhaps not many cutters of today possess since computers and mathematical formulae now distinguish the ideal cuts for a rough, rending stones that while may be full of sparkle, lacks in my view, a certain individual spirit and personality.

If you own an old cut stone, chances are, you will recognize it in any light as your own just by looking at it – the colour, the cutting, even by its inclusions. Luxury comes these days not in terms of how much you spend but also in terms of exclusivity that includes peculiarities and imperfections that in old cut diamonds, make them striking to behold. And diamonds with natural inclusions that mark them, giving them their own ID instead of a laser printed number are certainly unique by nature. So if you have an old cut diamond for example, a family heirloom of sorts, and have it resent into a new design, chances are even without loop in hand you won’t be fooled by any replacements, you’ll know it’s yours by eye.

Old cut diamonds also tend not to be as white as the modern brilliants, most of them having I, J, K, L colours or Top Cape, Cape colours. A feature that I have today, come to love.

This old cut diamond, acquired from Sotheby’s in Paris, has decades of narratives to tell, embodying romances across several lifetimes, reflected in its open cut and open flanked face.

All you need to do is pick it up,and read it.

A LOVE AFFAIR

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A pair of platinum diamond and purple amethyst ear drops.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

Jewellery has always had special significance in meaning as gifts in the Asian and Southeast-Asian cultures. From the early 1900s leading up to the First World War and subsequently the Depression years and then the period after the Second World War were difficult times in which food was strictly rationed and for those who could afford, jewellery was used to trade for other basic necessities. Even after the 1960s, the average family even in Singapore, where you could consider one of the more affluent countries in Southeast-Asia post World War II was certainly not cash rich. And it is during these years that I’ve heard the most number of family told stories of how gold jewellery and precious jade were pawned to keep food on the table for the family.

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Winter’s Sunday brunch along the Swedish west coast

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Swedish west coast winter in February 2012

February scene, Swedish west coast.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

February is usually the month in which visitors to Scandinavia get to witness the Nordic winter in its full regalia of climate beguile, the whipping winds and cold pelting rain that now turn to delicate snow crystals upon falling down, blankett the entire landscape in crisp white, turning the dull grey of the surrounding in just a few hours, to a scene that is breathtakingly beautiful, even if at the same time being unforgivingly, impractically and cruelly cold.
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