The Hungry Traveler: Locavores create intriguing cuisine in Greenland

Whale carpaccio? Saddle of reindeer?  Yes, and musk ox tartare, too.

Greenland is taking imaginative steps toward a creating a  distinctive modern cuisine.

For the last few years chefs in Scandinavian nations have been rolling out indigenous cooking all over the Nordic map. In fact, in 2004 they gathered in Copenhagen to announce a  “Manifesto for a New Nordic Cuisine,” based on seasonal food, local ingredients, and traditional products and cooking methods.

Its buzz words are fresh, simple, pure.

For Greenland, a Danish province with Home Rule, roughly 2000 miles from the mother country, modern Nordic cuisine is easier said than done.

First, there’s the ice cap that covers 85 percent of Greenland, the largest island in the world-it’s more than three times the size of Texas-leaving a narrow fertile fringe generally along the southwest coast. With its isolation and limited growing season, it’s understandable that culinary Greenland is lagging behind its Scandinavian sisters.

But what it does with what’s at hand is intriguing.ice beer,

Herbs and spices

In 2004, Anne Sofie Hardenberg, a prize-winning cookbook author, and a voice of new Nordic food on radio and television, discarded all the old spices and herbs in favor of native-grown, ancestral products.

“Herbs have grown here for a thousand years,” she said. “The magical silence (of Greenland) is good for man, herbs, and animals.”

One of her favorites is angelica, similar to rhubarb.  She recommends it in just about any dish, even sliced and simmered in sugar syrup to refresh a pitcher of ice water. Angelica and wild berries often make compotes to accompany meat dishes.

Hardenberg attributes the growing popularity of Nordic cooking to “a French kitchen,” meaning a European style of cooking with Greenlandic ingredients by chefs who train in Europe and are drawn, or return, to Greenland. “They use reindeer, musk ox, and sheep instead of importing beef.”

Ice beer?

A fledgling brewery tried something similar with that most indigenous ingredient: Arctic ice.

In the small town of Narsaq, a few yards from its iceberg-filled harbor, Salik Hard launched Greenland Brewhouse in 2004. Although Danish beer was readily available, he saw an opportunity for a hand-crafted Bavarian-style brew using pure inland ice.

“We go out with local fishermen to select the icebergs that have already broken off, that would melt anyway,” he said. “It’s the only beer in the world made with pure ice at least 2,000 years old, and therefore completely free from pollution. We aim to make the best beer in the world. We have the best water, the best hops, the best malt.”

Although it produced 2 million bottles of brown and pale ale with three employees last year, Greenland Brewhouse couldn’t survive the current recession. However, it did start a mini trend, and today, two local breweries in the capital city of Nuuk are using melted inland ice: Godthaab Bryghus, and Icefiord Brewery in the Hotel Icefiord, whose latest brews are angelica ale and crowberry ale.

Napparsivik in Qaqortoq

At Restaurant Napparsivik in Qaqortoq, a cruise ship port in the south that my friends and I quickly dubbed Q town, we had a surprisingly sophisticated meal by a young chef, Emil Karsbaek. It started with whale carpaccio (like delicious beef), served with apple compote; a plate of scallops, caviar, and a seabird called little auk (tough); rare leg of lamb and roast potatoes; and an inventive dessert that set a ball of vanilla ice cream in a fluted glass of hot fruit soup.

Our best meal was at Restaurant Nipisa, in Nuuk. Jeppe Ejvind Nielsen, named Greenland’s best chef for the last two years, came from Denmark three and a half years ago. His style is classic French, based on Greenland products.

“I have no trouble at all with Norse ingredients,” he said. “All the meats are from Greenland. I love reindeer; it’s delicious, and easy to use. I treat whale like veal - quick cooking - that’s with the right cut of whale, not the blubber.”

As for fresh ingredients, he uses only what’s in season.

“In the beginning it was hard to get some things but we’ve established a network and, for example, we buy the entire crop of vegetables from a farmer on a nearby fjord. It’s so amazing to have fresh vegetables from 500-year old soil.”

Crowberries

Fruit is another matter; it is mainly berries, especially crowberries, which are small with a cluster of tiny seeds that look and taste like blueberries. It is widely used, with meats, sauces, desserts, and lately, even in beer.

Nielsen’s memorable multi-course meal started with crowberry kir, then smoked reindeer with cucumber and smoked halibut on a mango slice, with local beer; salted salmon with raw Greenlandic shrimps, tiny avocado cubes, salad of green herbs and chive vinaigrette; mustard-baked Greenland halibut with poached egg, crisp Serrano ham, and deep-fried arugula; grilled red fish in reindeer/beetroot consommé served with curry-braised onion and curry oil; juniper berry-poached fillet of musk-ox served with beer-braised musk-ox neck, carrots and turnips, light béarnaise and thyme-roasted potatoes.

The grand finale: crowberry ice cream and preserve in a cookie cylinder standing in a white chocolate panna cotta that was partially caramelized like a creme brulee. Imported wines accompanied each course.

Typical dinners at hotel restaurants are likely to start with a prawn cocktail and include broiled fish -often Arctic char or salmon - and boiled vegetables. Typical lunches are not unlike an American deli buffet: sliced meats, sausages, pate, pickled beets, several herrings, processed cheeses, hard boiled eggs, brown bread.

You’ll notice the scarcity of green vegetables. Ironically, global warming has extended the growing season by about three weeks, giving farmers more time to raise crops and experiment with new ones, such as broccoli.

Coffee-milk

A delightful way to check out Danish pastries-which are not at all what immediately comes to mind-is to visit a Greenland home for a “coffee-milk.” This is a national institution, when people celebrate just about anything, from anniversaries to a child’s first day of school, and certainly to welcome overseas visitors.

Our first coffee-milk was in the remote southern Greenland village of Qassiarsuk, the ancient site where Eric the Red, exiled from Norway and Iceland for murder, first landed in 985 and named it Greenland.

Along with the Viking’s recreated longhouse and his wife’s tiny grass-roofed church, a few farmhouses dot the sloping fjordside hills. Small icebergs bob in the distance. The green and fertile land must look very much as it did a thousand years ago.

The Vikings survived for about 500 years, then inexplicably disappeared; Greenland wasn’t settled again until the 18th century.

Qassiarsuk, population 56, is a sheep station, and Aviaja, a young Greenlander who works the 600-sheep family farm with her husband and father-in-law, took us to what everyone calls Laura’s house. Laura. 75, is the daughter-in-law of the settlement’s founder.

As is customary, we took off our shoes at the door and sat in Laura’s living room, filled with family pictures, where a table was set with a linen cloth and pretty blue-and-white Royal Copenhagen-style china. Over buttered scone-like buns, an apple trifle, and a chocolate-filled roll with whipped cream dotted with crowberries, Laura showed us how she cleaned the skin of a puma her husband had killed.

Aviaja described life on a sheep farm, and how every part of the sheep is used, for leather and wool, as well as food. This is Economy 101 in a country of 57,000, where there are about as many sheep as people.

Following the new Nordic cuisine and the old traditions, it is easy to fall for the welcoming charm of Greenlanders - and that’s a good kind of global warming.

IF YOU GO

Getting there: There is no direct service between the U.S. and Greenland.  American visitors fly first to Copenhagen, then take a 4½-hour flight on Air Greenland. In the summer, there are twice-weekly flights via Iceland.

Eating there: Most dinners will start at about $60, without wine. Restaurant Nipisa, Hans Egedes Vej 29, Nuuk, (299) 32 1210; Restaurant Napparsivik, Torvevej B 67, Qaqortoq, (299) 64 3067; Steakhouse Nanoq, Hotel Qaqortoq, 3920 Qaqortoq. (299) 64 2282; Restaurant Klara, Hotel Narsaq, 3921 Narsaq. (299) 66 1290.

More info: Log on to www.greenland.com.

Tags: Anne Sofie Hardenberg, Danish, Godthaab Bryghus, greenland, Hotel Icefiord, Icefiord Brewery, nordic, reindeer, Scandinavian, SDNN

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