12 Days: Esben Holmboe Bang of Maaemo
The Restaurant at Meadowood’s annual 12 Days of Christmas guest chef series is underway. Here at Inside Scoop, we’re reviving our own tradition of tracking each night through the chefs’ words and their food — with a little help from Bonjwing Lee, a.k.a. the Ulterior Epicure, who is responsible for the gorgeous photos above.
You can check out past years here: 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.
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When it comes to these guest chef dinners, it’s always interesting to see the different approaches of the chefs in their efforts to balance their local cooking in a new environment. How to reproduce “local cuisine” thousands of miles away from its origins?
For Esben Holmboe Bang of Maaemo in Oslo (Norway), he reconciled the paradox by bringing some specialty ingredients over from Europe — like homemade vinegars and salted sheep — to recreate Norway flavors, but also looked to Napa Valley.
“We have brought some dishes that are very synonymous with our restaurant — and we have gone to the garden and forest here and found some amazing produce,” Bang says. “We wanted to also cook something that reflects the surroundings here in Meadowood, and capture a little of the essence that we, as visitors, see.”
“We cook food that obviously has a root in the culture and the history of our country.”
Obviously there is a bright spotlight on Scandinavian cuisine these days. Bang says the increased attention isn’t so much about Norway, or Denmark, or Sweden per se; it’s about an increased attention to the beliefs that are becoming more widely practiced: “The way I see it is people will start thinking about sustainability and the region and make cooking that will reflect the region.”
“To be perfectly honest, the way Scandinavian cooking has now influenced and a lot of the core elements in Scandinavian cooking is not unique,” he continues. “What makes it unique is our landscape and the way we try to reflect that aesthetic. A lot of people say that is influencing other cuisines, but I think other cuisines have been doing this for centuries. It’s not a new thing at all. It’s actually an old thing.”
The menu:
Day Ten of the
Twelve Days of Christmas
December 18, 2014
“rommegrot” porridge sour cream dried reindeer heart
maaemo
oysters mussels dill
maaemo
caviar roasted chestnuts
maaemo
potatoes cooked in beeswax assorted sorrels
the restaurant
beets blackthorn
chamomile roasted yeast
maaemo
quail egg charred onions
salted sheep
maaemo
pork acorn miso
succulents hoshigaki
the restaurant
“paul’s beef”
fermented onion turnip
the restaurant
the norwegian black currant bush
maaemo
this is our tree
maaemo
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Camille Giroud “Corton-Charlemagne” 2009
Colgin “Tychson Hill” 2010
Colgin “Cariad” 2006
Colgin “IX Estate” Red 2009
Colgin “IX Estate” Syrah 2007
Previously:
· Day One: Matthew Orlando, Amass (Copenhagen)
· Day Two: Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli of Frankies Spuntino (Brooklyn)
· Day Three: Kobe Desramaults, In De Wulf (Dranouter)
· Day Four: Alexandre Gauthier, La Grenouillère (La Madelaine sous Montreuil)
· Day Five: Blaine Wetzel, The Willows Inn (Lummi Island)
· Day Six: Joshua McFadden, Ava Gene’s (Portland)
· Day Seven: Virgilio Martinez, Central (Lima)
· Day Eight: Grant Achatz, Alinea (Chicago)
· Day Nine: Corey Lee, Benu (San Francisco)