CookBook Review: The Nordic Diet by Trina Hahnemann

Guest Blogger Terry Jones reviews The Nordic Diet by Trina Hahnemann:  

LET THEM EAT QUARK: FUNDAMENTALS OF THE NORDIC DIET

by Terry Jones

I borrowed this cookbook from my dear friend Glenna with the idea of finding a few new recipes to add to my shortlist. Unfortunately for Glenna, I liked the cookbook so much that I have flatly refused to return it and have agreed to write this review for two reasons. First, to salvage our friendship and secondly to allow me to keep aforementioned cookbook (Editorial note:  Dream on, Pal. The cookbook comes home to Momma!), Both of which are of great meaning to me but are not necessarily listed in order of importance.

The Nordic Diet cookbook is centered around the basic principles of cooking delicious and wholesome food with simple, local ingredients and eating them with family and friends. Good idea, right? Personally I'm getting tired of cooking shows that feature some pompous chef creating a magnificently difficult dish in a $75,000 kitchen using whole vanilla bean pods steeped in cognac that was warmed between the thighs of Swedish virgins. My kitchen probably looks more like yours and whole vanilla bean pods are devilishly hard to find, not to mention Swedish virgins in my immediate surroundings.

The Nordic diet cookbook uses foods that are local to the area and relies heavily on root crops and fresh fish. These ingredient are fairly easy to find in most climates, or better yet, easy to grow and overwinter in a cold frame. The foods are not only simple and fantastically fresh and delicious but very healthy and low in calories as well. This cookbook celebrates the satisfaction that our ancestors must have found in the delayed gratification that comes of only eating the foods currently in season and thereby enjoying each food to its fullest extent during the few weeks that the food was naturally available.

Not only does this cookbook provide recipes in which to use the Jerusalem artichokes which are quietly nesting underground beneath the dried and fallen leaves in my back yard, but it also validates my long love affair with the physically unappealing but inexplicably delicious celeraic roots that reside still in their snow-covered planter boxes. Kale will grow outdoors in almost any climate and shitake mushrooms can be had fresh all winter long by simply bringing a log indoors and watering. Beets and collards and chard flourish in a window box or greenhouse. I know, this is supposed to be a cookbook review and not a gardening manifesto but if you truly want to cook with fresh ingredients then you should break out some potting soil this winter and give it a try. Growing beautiful green things through the winter is nearly as cathartic as eating them.

There are a few ingredients in this book that are unavailable in some climates. Quark is used in a few recipes and is so delicate that I'm not sure that a substitute is available. An included recipe for quark would have been nice but it is easy to make and my wife's efforts were rewarded with a delicious chard tart. Most of the measurements are given in grams and that did get annoying after awhile to me using stand American cups and Tbsps but if you are one of those cooks that prepares food like you are in a chemistry lab then you better get a good gram scale...although if you fall into this category then you probably already have one.

If you are an intrepid cook and you are in the mood for a few recipes that are completely different and terrific then pick up a copy of this book and you won't be disappointed. Or just find a friend who has a copy and refuse to return it. I did.

Comments

[Kalynskitchen]

Sounds like an interesting book, and fun having a guest blogger on Fridge Full of Food too!

[karin]

I think what they refer to as quark is cottage cheese

[Melly]

Great review. They must eat lots of fish, no?

I wonder if the pilgrims, right in the middle of winter, were wishing for tomatoes from Mexico?

[Glenna]

Kalyn--It IS fun! I wouldn't know personally if the cookbook is any good, though, since SOMEBODY has refused to return it!

Karin--Actually, there are recipes for quark out there but I be cottage cheese could be substituted--thanks!

Melly--LOL! Ahhhhh, the very beginnings of no appreciation for the natural environment and only the wishing to turn everything upside down. Yup, I htink you're probably right!

From what I DID get to see in the book, it looks like quite a bit of fish, lamb, pork, and wild fowl like quail, etc.

[terry jones]

say glenna, maybe the author will send you a free copy since you blogged her book. Then you will have a copy too!

[Glenna]

Ha! She'd just tell you to give me mine back! :-)

[Dianne]

I can't say that I have any Swedish virgins in my kitchen either! ;)

I like the idea of fresh and local. As a general rule people from the Noridic area are much healthier than we are, so I think they are on to something!

[jamie]

nothing even close to quark can be bought. But it's fun to as for it in grocery stores just to see the looks on faces! - aforementioned wife

[Glenna]

Dianne--I think so too. Like Med Diet, it is all about fresh and local--wherever you are!

Jamie--I'm going to have to try to make it!