Scandinavia is 'world’s best larder’

Press, 29 December 1988, Page 12

Scandinavia is 'world’s best larder’

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm The winners of this year’s Nobel prizes had a further treat in store: a banquet created by the head of the world’s most exclusive cookery club. Although Sweden is hardly renowned as a gastronomic mecca, the president of the club reserved for cooks of presidents and kings, the Club des Chefs des Chefs, is Werner Vogeli, aged 58, gala chef for the Swedish king and queen. He has been royal cook for 27 years, and in this capacity prepared the banquet given by King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia in honour of the dozen Nobel prize winners in Stockholm to receive their prizes. “Everyone always asks me: What is a chef like you doing in Stockholm?” Vogeli told reporters in an interview. “The fact is, there has been a revolution in gastronomy in Sweden in the 30 years I have been here, and people are learning to appreciate the traditional foods Scandinavia has to offer. “But it remains true that Sweden is much better at promoting its Volvo cars abroad than its cuisine,” Vogeli said. Born in a village in Emmental, in Switzerland, Vogeli has trained and worked in kitchens throughout Europe. But he built his career firmly in Sweden. Vogeli says Scandinavia, especially in the harsh climae of the Arctic region, has one of the world’s finest larders. “I cooked for President Mitterrand here on a State visit recently and he commented that all five courses were quite new for him,” the chef said. Vogeli loves the char fished from crystal mountains lakes, bleak caught at the northern tip of the Baltic sea, whose roe gives one of the world’s finest caviar, and grouse and reindeer from the forests. There is also an astounding range of mushrooms, such as chantarelles, morels and ceps, and wild berries like the lingonberry, and the delicate tasting cloudberry found in abundance in the wilderness of Lapland. “On the Continent, few people know of the existence of the cloudberry. It’s a shame they are missing such a wonderful fruit. It really is a food of the gods,” Vogeli says. Vogeli serves up his delights not only to royalty and their guests but at two of the best restauranta in Stockholm: Stallmastaregarden and -

i the famous Operakal- > laren, a restaurant with seating for 1200, which Vogeli helped open in 1961. “It’s all a long way from my dream of owning a smallish restaurant where the customers would know me and my food, but it’s a great success nonetheless,” Vogeli said. “I think 50 per cent of my work these days is spent trying to enthuse other people about my ideas — and still it sometimes turns out differently from what I had in mind," he said. A smiling man always to be seen wearing a chef’s hat with a pencil and odd pieces of paper tucked in, Vogeli rather destroys the stereotype of the temperamental chef who is an ogre in his kitchen. “People wouldn’t recognise me without the hat,” he jokes. He says he gets very nervous before State banquets, despite the thousands he has cooked, and cannot sleep at night for thinking about what to put on the menu. Vogeli also scoffs at the mystique surrounding top chefs, explaining that the idea behind the Club des Chefs des Chefs was originally strictly business. The club was dreamt up 13 years ago by three sponsors — the champagne producer, Louis Roederer, the Contreau liqueur company, and the cooks’ outfitters, Bragard. Nonetheless, Vogeli says it offers top chefs j from 28 different countries a chance to learn from each other. There are two Chinese members among their number and next year, the club will hold its annual meeting in China. Vogeli does not cook for the royal couple on a daily basis. “I think I have an exciting job, able to create for those special occasions. On the whole, royalty gets rather tired of rich food and wants to eat simply.” Asked to divulge the Swedish king and queen’s I favourite food, Vogeli diplomatically says they are not fussy eaters. “But I’m often rung by by a chef who has to prepare them something asking my advice, and I always answer: Don’t overwhelm them with large portions, and let them serve themselves — that way they’ll eat everything,” Vogeli said. As for Vogeli’s favourite food: the fresh, healthy seasonal produce Sweden .has to offer — and Italian 'pasta.