You Are What You Eat

Of all of the abundant pleasures that this world has to offer, is there really anything better than food? I would gladly hear the arguments for all of the cases, but I could hardly proclaim myself a fair and impartial judge on the matter, at least not with a straight face. Inwardly, I would probably be dreaming of the chuck roasts my mom would make for our birthday supper requests, or the cheerful bacon and egg breakfasts my grandparents would lay on the sun-drenched table after I spent the night. The smell of food is the simplest key into the gateway of memory, each fragrant spice recalling holidays long gone, each waft of roasting meats evoking fires on summer nights beneath the stars. The simple act of breaking bread, of cooking and sharing with those you cherish, is one of the oldest and most beautiful traditions that we, as humans, have upheld and perfected.

However, not all meals are created equal. We can find ourselves too lazy to cook, and end up throwing together an uninspired dish to make it through the evening. A recipe can fail, or we can fail the recipe. This can be especially disheartening when away from home, whether the local restaurant down the street fails to impress or the local flavors in a far away locale disagree with you. But maybe, if lucky enough, one might have the exceedingly good fortune to stumble into a dream, a place where the surroundings are as beautiful as the company you keep, and the food served there is seared into your memory forever.

A few years back, I found myself standing at the base of a path near Jørpeland, Norway, looking up at the daunting hike we were about to embark on. After clearing the top of Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, my friends and I marveled at the breathtaking views that stretched over the Lysefjord, but soon found that the Clif bars and trail snacks we had brought had barely scratched the surface of our appetite. We descended, and took our rental to a restaurant that we had heard about from a friendly ice cream seller the day before, a place called Villa Rosehagen.

I don’t know what we were expecting, but it wasn’t this. An Art Nouveau villa, with a stunning rose garden, home to an array of over one hundred varieties of roses, and a view to the harbor below. It was quiet there that day, with only a few other diners, but after poking our heads around the cafe dining area, we settled into seats near a window and were soon greeted by the same woman who had sold us ice cream the day before! If memory serves, she was the proprietor of both, and we couldn’t have ended up in better hands. We were served coffee, and sipped on that while trying to decipher the menu. In the end, we each got a separate dish and vowed to share.

If food is the finest pleasure on earth, its intrinsic value is increased exponentially when you have just climbed a mountain. We started with a plate of assorted pickled herring, served with a sour cream and onion sauce, homemade flatbread, and small potatoes. Toss any notion of jarred pickled herring you can buy at home out the window. To this day, I’ve never encountered its equal. It was much firmer in texture than the bland and mushy varieties I had tried before, and it tasted clean, and fresh, and in that moment I had a moment of sadness that I could hardly hope to find anything as simple and wholesome back home in the U.S. The juxtaposition of this simple appetizer and the heavily processed, fried food that is commonly available at home was revelatory, and I found myself promising to be more conscious of how I source my own meals.

After the herring was cleared away in fairly short order, our meals arrived. I had opted for what roughly translated to the Fisherman’s Special, which stands as one of the finest culinary decisions of my life. Unbelievably fresh, thick cream served as the base, and it was filled with salmon and shrimp, which tasted like it had been plucked from the ocean that very morning (it very well may have been). On top, in the manner of Shepherd’s Pie, a thick layer of mashed potatoes had been baked, creating a seal that kept the soup perfectly hot. Also in rotation on the table between us was reindeer stew, and the protein rich, tender meat was exactly what our overtaxed muscles required. All was served with homemade bread and salad, and at the end, not a single crumb remained. We rounded everything off with a shared apple cake. We were alone inside now, and I felt so content and comfortable, welcomed in a country that wasn’t my own.

This stands as one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve had my share of the exceptional. On paper, the fare may seem ordinary, even mundane. It was made extraordinary by the amount of care and love that must have gone into sourcing and preparing the ingredients. While this is by no means unique to this particular restaurant, it made me reconsider the way that we view food in the U.S. Here, farm-to-table establishments are few and far between, overshadowed by the mass-produced chain restaurants that populate the landscape, and the very fact that they are farm-to-table is a necessary part of their branding. It sets them apart. What distinguishes Villa Rosehagen, and others like it, is that they don’t need to tell you that their ingredients are fresh, locally sourced and humanely curated. You can taste it. It tastes the way food should taste, free from the chemical and hormone amalgam that unfortunately pervades our dietary makeup. I know that in the end, we alone are responsible for what we put into our bodies, and I often cite this meal as the one that opened my eyes to the possibility of a brighter, cleaner, healthier culinary future for myself and those I have the pleasure of sharing food with.