Every year the Nobel Prize Banquet is held in Stockholm, Sweden, where the Swedish monarchy slums it with the plebeian masses while some hardware is handed out to the newest Nobel laureates. (Except the Peace Prize, which is given out in Oslo, Norway. Don't ask. I think we all know Sweden and Norway are just the same place if we're being honest with ourselves.)
As the name implies, it's a banquet, with actual food for 1,300 guests. So what are they serving for this year's gathering to be held this coming Thursday?
If you're wondering, that's their website from today, which refuses to say what they're feeding anyone until the actual banquet starts. They're more secretive than Colonel Sanders and Coca-Cola are with their recipes.
There are no hard and fast rules what must be served, except something should be Scandinavian-inspired. If your taste buds didn't just come to life when you read "Scandinavian-inspired," hold onto your tongue, because this was 2014's menu:
Cream of cauliflower soup,
mosaic of red king crab, peas and lemon pickled cauliflower florets
Spiced loin of red deer, carrot terrine, salt-baked golden beets,
smoked pearl onions, potato purée and game jus
Mousse and sorbet of wild dewberries from Gotland,
saffron panna cotta and brown butter sponge cake
They had me at cream of cauliflower soup, but the night was won with mentions of dewberries.
My grandmother used to make pearl onions for meals, and she was no culinary wiz. She also used to make spaghetti with Campbell's tomato soup--a culinary concoction that still haunts my dreams. Maybe she was secretly Swedish?
All I know is some year the Nobel folks really should just serve everyone a KFC bucket of chicken, with a side of lingonberries. Everyone would be happy.
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