Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen is the brain child of gastronomic entrepreneur Claus Meyer and head chef René Redzepi of Noma restaurant. As a part of Department of Food Science at University of Copenhagen, they have introduced the lecture series Monday Aperitivo, held on the last Monday of the month and everybody is welcome.
Driven by the pursuit of a sustainable cuisine and the idea that the Nordic landscape should define Nordic food, the two entrepreneurs bent their cooking into a creative framework, only allowing Nordic ingredients, and letting the wild, the herbal, the untamed from the coldest lands of Europe define the language of flavor they explored.
Since then the lab has not only attracted world wide attention by issuing the book On eating insects but also contributed to numerous festivals, symposiums and food events in Denmark and beyond.
The Nordic Food Lab’s mission is to teach and inspire people about taste and the flavor of biodiversity. Last year it participated in the Danish Berry Festival as well as Japanese workshops teaching Gyotako (Japanese fish prints) techniques.
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The Monday Aperitivo lectures will explore the intersection of gastronomy and science and the lectures will be given by invited personalities in the two disciplines.
Monday Aperitivo is an informal forum where food and science are discussed passionately in order to find new ways to stimulate the appetite. Responsibility for Monday Aperitivo rotates among the team members at the Nordic Food Lab and scientific assistant Louise Beck Brønnum, who has just been working with extraction in the research project Taste for Life, was responsible for the first event.
In the video above, professor of gastrophysics Ole G. Mouritsen talks about the fish katsuobushi, while chef Philipp Inreiter from Slurp Ramen Joint demonstrates how to make a delicious Dashi – a broth based on seaweed and in this case katsuobushi. Dashi, which can also be made from mushrooms, is the foundation for Japanese noodle soup (ramen).
Monday Aperitivo, which always has a special theme, will take place on the last Monday of the month from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. The tickets cost about 125 kroner.
On 26 February, Nordic Food Lab goes to Montreal, Canada. Scientific and humanistic approaches with culinary techniques from all over the globe will be the theme. The project, conceived by the University of Copenhagen, addresses our experiences of food, at three levels: sensorial, biological and semantic.
Monday Aperitivo in Copenhagen, written by Tor Kjolberg