♪ <Jim Kane> [laughs] <Jim> From the north sea to the world's coolest city.

What an obscure Danish word can teach us about building a thriving community.

<Claus Meyer> Everyone who cooks has an obligation to do something meaningful for other people for the unborn.

<Jim> In this episode of The Food Principle.

♪ <Jim> For 20 years, I've used food as a catalyst to connect travelers with local culture around the world.

Yet, food does even more than connect us.

It also plays a pivotal role in some of our greatest challenges.

♪ Now, I'm on a quest to learn from leaders in the vanguard of these battles.

♪ All using the power of food to plant a better planet.

♪ I'm Jim Kane, and this is The Food Principle.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ <Jim> Spend any amount of time in Copenhagen and it's easy to see why Denmark is perennially ranked among the happiest nations on earth.

Everything seems designed to maximize quality of life and integrate nature, healthy lifestyles and social connection into everyday living.

From biking, boating, and kayaking along the city's canals, to swimming in it's pristine harbor.

<Jim> I mean, look straight down here.

This is like a dreamscape.

<Speaker 3> Yeah.

I think I can live <Jim> Live in a boathouse in a boat like that.

that looks like that?

Yeah.

<Speaker 3> I can live in that boat.

♪ <Jim> And of course, there's the food.

♪ From street fair to Michelin stars, artisan bakeries, to maverick distilleries, the city's food scene pulses with an energy that goes way beyond influencers and accolades and taps directly into food's power to build communities and inspire change.

♪ During the COVID crisis, I ran across an old Danish word that had been resurrected to become Denmark's word of the year in 2020, "samfundssind."

It represents a sense of social responsibility that many feel helped the Danes navigate the pandemic better than most, and with so many of the biggest issues we face requiring collective action, I wondered if samfundssind, might offer lessons for the rest of us.

♪ <Claus> Here, we go fishing.

<Jim> Let's do it.

<Claus> Yep.

<Jim> Let's do it.

Be nice.

<Jim> If anyone could help me understand this concept of samfundssind, it was Claus Meyer, one of the architects of the New Nordic Manifesto that helped transform Danish food culture.

When Claus invites you to his beach house to check the nets, you say yes, even if you're not exactly sure what this entails.

<Claus> You know, now I'm just checking everything that is in the net.

<Jim> That's in the net.

<Claus> If there's anything in the net.

<Jim> What will you make from it?

<Claus> That depends.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Claus> <Jim> Okay.

[unintelligible] <Claus> You don't die from it, <Jim> ...as long as you remove that, you're okay?

<Claus> As long as you don't get that in your hand, you're fine.

<Jim> One of the founding figures of the New Nordic Movement, Claus Meyer, social entrepreneur, author, TV host, and co-founder of the world renowned restaurant Noma .

He's fueled by a desire to be an agent of change.

<Claus> [Audience answers] Yeah!

<Jim> And considers it like oxygen to create a moment of joy or hope for others.

I'm wondering about your thoughts on samfundssind, through the lens of food, if maybe there are elements in the New Nordic Manifesto about that.

<Claus> It's all about that.

It's all about actually...stepping up and taking...upon you a responsibility for the big issues in life.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Claus> It's about the fact that everyone who cooks has an obligation or an opportunity to do something meaningful for other people, for the unborn.

Once you face that, that opportunity, it's very difficult to not care.

[ocean waves crashing] This process, this new Nordic cuisine movement became so visible and suddenly to see a whole industry.

I mean, thousands of shifts, trying to be co-creators of change probably has reinforced something that was already part of Danish-ness.

♪ ♪ ♪ <Jim> Whew!

We're in.

♪ What a way to wake up in the morning, huh?

<Jim> There's so many food system thinkers here that are doing not just innovative things, but things that are reconnecting us to the roots of where the food's coming from, how the heck did this all happen?

<Claus> I got a chance to witness the golden age of french gastronomy and the concept of terroir, which is the idea that food should taste of where you are.

Due to the fact that I found love and meaning and deliciousness in the very same place, it became very clear to me that something was absolutely rotten in Denmark.

I had found or felt like a calling and I wanted to change Danish food culture.

In 2000, 17 years down that road, I said, I need to find a way to induce this change, and that was the moment where I realized that what I've been doing for the first two decades of my adult life was wrong.

<Claus> So I'd been an advocate of everything French instead of importing and reflecting France in Denmark, the obvious idea was to start investigating the qualities and opportunities sitting within our own landscapes.

So, I learned that actually you can decide to change a food culture.

If chefs are driving this process of change, apparently it can impact the spirit and the food ways of an entire nation.

It was not a matter of being the best in the world, neither for Noma or for the food culture at Denmark as such.

It was a matter of being a catalyst of a change.

♪ <Claus> [laughs] We have an escapee Claus.

<Jim> Uh oh.

The New Nordic Manifesto and the new Nordic cuisine is not just meant for high end restaurants, but also for the person at home cooking something with apples and cabbage.

<Claus> Then also, because if it's only a couple of chefs who does everything perfect, then it won't help, healing the food systems.

<Jim> What made the second go around eventually successful?

<Claus> Starting with a top down approach, instead of running around single-handedly, like a maniac, trying to change vinegar, change coffee, change chocolate.

You know, wake up people, then starting sharing the big idea that approach became hugely successful, but what actually happened was that tens of thousands of people went out and did stuff on their own, but in the name of the Nordic cuisine they wanted to contribute.

♪ <Jim> Would you say this is a small, average or big catch?

<Speaker 4> That's a very small catch, I would say.

<Jim> Very small catch.

Yeah.

<Claus> Small catch.

♪ <Jim> Having survived the waves, the venomous fleecing, and Claus' assessment of the visiting land lubber.

It was time to head over to the aspiringly named, "World's Best Picnic," a rock soup style gathering, where everyone contributes a little something to the pot.

<Claus> We bought our summer house 15 years ago here in Udsholt Strand, north of Copenhagen, close to the ocean.

I guess that in the beginning, I was a little bit exhausted by all these projects in my foundation and all the things I wanted to change.

Returning to Denmark was to see the miracle in the very small things, see the fairytale in the tiny project and this in no way compares to changing, to redefining re-socialization or fighting poverty in Bolivia, but the World's Best Picnic, was an invitation to the people living in this kind of, abandoned part of the north of Sealand, chip in with their competencies, create micro events, and participate in a bingo or in a quiz or in a morning run or in a meditation session.

Even the French word host, le hôte, means it's the same word for the one preparing the meal and the one joining the meal.

It's the same word.

<Jim> Okay.

<Claus> And the point is that, what would a great dinner be without guests?

It's a micro reflection of the New Nordic Cuisine Movement in the way this is framed.

It's not the new Nordic cuisine.

It is the World's Best Picnic.

For this to become true, we need everybody to do a little bit.

<Jim> While Claus' vision for food is a tool for change would start with high profile chefs signing the New Nordic Manifesto, it didn't stop there.

He knew that if this change was to spread, then every part of society must have an opportunity to be part of it, even the marginalized, even the incarcerated.

<Claus> I mean, for me, it has always been almost like oxygen to create a moment of joy or to create a hope for other people.

How beauty wouldn't it be if I could, if I penetrate a closed state prison and teach Denmark, the lesson that everybody deserves a second chance in life, what [censored] with the opportunity to tell this story, wouldn't reach out for it, and there said I, I think I can do it.

I can convince the warden that we can do this together and everything will be fine, and he will have a better culture in the prison, and he will have fewer inmates in the future.

<Jim> Sure.

<Claus> If we can teach them something, a trade, a craft, having somebody come and eat your food.

Also, this kind of gets under your skin, besides the idea of earning a new competence, it actually turns you into a caring person.

♪ Claus eventually found success by focusing on communicating the big idea.

Another key was identifying individuals capable of driving change, Kamilla Seidler and Mette Strarup were two such talents, who led Claus' ambitious social gastronomy projects in Bolivia and Brownsville.

<Claus> Kamilla and Mette could have ended in many other kind of life scenarios than the ones they entered into, and it's not that I taught them to be as great as they became, but I felt that they had the right motivation, the right values, and then the projects grew these capabilities within those two amazing ladies.

♪ <Jim> While directing far flung projects for Claus may have grown Kamilla and Mette's professional capacities, I would soon discover their talent for far flung objects, specifically petanque.

<Jim> ...take away my ball.

Please don't take away my ball.

<Jim> The sun-kissed court on Lola's grounds is about as welcoming as you can imagine, which in a way led into our next conversation.

<Jim> Nice, nice one.

Nice one.

Got it, It's close.

♪ [awes] ♪ <Jim> Kamilla Seidler wants to make restaurants more welcoming, equitable, and balanced, in other words, sustainable for the team, as well as the planet.

In 2016, while leading restaurant, Gustu in Bolivia, Kamilla was named best female chef in Latin America.

Now back in Copenhagen, she and her partners own Lola and Lola impact.

♪ We're here in Denmark, in Copenhagen.

learning about samfundssind.

I'd love to hear from your perspective, just what samfundssind means to you.

<Kamilla> It's something very present in our society where you almost feel an anger toward injustice.

I don't know why, but somehow it's just built into society.

that's helping other people without being forced to do it.

<Jim> I know you're living in this.. magical juxtaposition between food and social impact for a lot of years.

Why is it that food is so powerful in a sense?

<Kamilla> There's kind of like, a full ecosystem going on here.

That also means that there's space for everybody.

The Nordic movement had done so much for Nordic gastronomy and how the tourism had been pushed forward.

The gastronomy sector in general has really improved from the 80s and 90s where it was quite horrible, only a couple of good French restaurants, maybe, and an Italian here and there, to suddenly being the epicenter of international gastronomy, and putting all this into a context of foreign aid and third world country and all of these things that you can, all the caps you can drag over Bolivia's head.

It just kinda makes complete sense that if by improving gastronomy and enhancing the quality and the level in tourism, in general, of course you can make more money, and you can you know, improve people's lives, from the potato producer to the culinary student, to the hotel manager, it's a full circle.

<Kamilla> There's so many ways that you can be included in this business.

You don't have to speak the language.

You can be shown something, and then, you know, peel a carrot, you know what peeling a carrot is.

You don't need to have complicated long lessons on how to do your job.

So, it's very welcoming.

It can be on a very basic level, and then you can grow within that business.

<Jim> When we first met, you described Lola as a big, beautiful effing circus.

<Kamilla> We have the privilege of having a very mixed team: a sommelier from London, Lucas from Denmark, but with an Italian background, we have Ottavia, an Italian waiter, then we have to Tomak, who's from Poland, then we have Ranata from Bolivia.

We have David from India, and so on and so on.

So it's like, every day you come into work, it's like the UN.

It feels a little bit more like a family kind of thing, without the 90 hour work weeks.

We're like, "Yeah, we're family.

", but like a true family.

<Ranata> And you can help yourself with the other tweezer just to push it in, so you get an interesting shape.

<Jim> Ah!

<Ranata> Yeah [laughs] <Jim> That was both super dorky and I'm glad I caught it.

<Ranata> A little impressive?

[all laugh] <Jim> It was like the dork ninja.

[all laugh] It was like the combination.

So I'm just dropping?

<Ranata> Just drop it.

Yeah, and then you'll see that it starts bubbling a bit and then you can, yeah.

Help it get like a funky shape.

There you go, and then when it stops bubbling, you can just pick it up.

<Jim> Okay.

<Ranata> Sort of drain it.

Yeah.

Perfect.

<Jim> How do you go from the traditional hierarchy when it's "Yes chef," to empowering your fellow team members to really feel like they're making decisions and helping you co-create?

<Kamilla> I think one of the, the easiest way to see it is on the menu.

The food being served is often a mix of an idea David had with something where I, maybe added something and then Ranata you know, took it to Southeast Asia for a while.

[unintelligible] It's fine to have a place that just serves food and wine, but it should also be a place that can do a little more.

It has to be a restaurant that can change somebody's life for the better.

♪ <Jim> That's a summer dish.

That's beautiful.

[Ranata laughs] <Jim> Mette Strarup was forged in fine dining, but would fall in love with teaching and the special connection to be had over a cutting board.

Teaching in the prison program, and later in Brownsville, New York brought her into contact with Kamilla and the work being done in Bolivia.

When Mette returned to Denmark, a partnership beckoned, but only if it had a social impact.

<Kamilla> Mette had visited us in Bolivia because she was going to Brownsville, New York to do a very similar project with Claus Meyer's Melting Pot Foundation.

She used to be a teacher at the Meyer's culinary classes where my brother had attended, after school culinary classes for kids, she was like, "I have to tell you something, I'm going back to Denmark."

I'm like, "Oh, that's perfect.

Let's open a restaurant."

And she was like, "Yeah, no, no, no.

"I got a job.

No, no, thanks, but sounds good.

"Let me hear about it, when I get there."

<Mette> You know, Kamilla, you met her now.

She's persistent and she knows what she wants.

We had a coffee and she's like, "You know what, I got this, this weird meeting with this woman.

"She has this old mill in town."

She's like, "Can you just come with me?"

And we saw this place and it was completely destroyed.

It was so old, and it was falling apart, but beautiful.

This has potential, huge potential.

If we don't have a social aspect of this, it's, another restaurant is just another restaurant.

So for me, I'm not on board, if we don't have a social impact.

♪ <Jim> Lola Impact offers inclusion and employment, as it re-incorporates people to society's margins, by teaching them to cope, as well as to cook, in this food truck, life skills are as important as knife skills.

<Mette> I was a female chef and it was 12 male drug dealers or murderers.

So, it wasn't like, "No, thank you."

So I was super nervous and I went with one of the boys, so, I wasn't going by myself and all these locking, like gates, and it was very dramatic and going through this detector and stuff.

So I decided to be there a couple of days, and just fell completely in love with the whole thing.

I absolutely fell in love with the connection you can have over a bloody chopping board.

It's the conversations, the feelings, the...kind of different stories you get from so many different kinds of people, to find out we all have issues and what it can really do, like a big dinner and cooking together.

It can bring out emotions, right.

It's like, okay, let's do a Bearnaise, and then in the middle of that, you can still come into deep conversations in life.

<Jim> Absolutely.

<Mette> Yeah.

That's where it all started.

<Jim> Very cool.

<Mette> Yeah.

<Jim> What are you doing at Lola Impact and how are you taking people in, and how are you training them up?

<Mette> For me, it's what you can do with food and people, and it's also to learn these young adults, how to kinda get a real job when - it's a real job, but how to be an adult and take responsibility for your own life, how to save up money, how to not come to work super drunk or super hung over that you don't know how to spell your own name, but I mean, if you're not taking life and yourself seriously, then it will catch up with you at some point, and then you either end up like a bum or you have success, but at least you need to try.

When you come of a certain age, you need to, you can live the crazy young life.

You need to also have responsibilities, and that's what we kind of teach them.

So for me, and what I've been telling Rune and Kamilla, it's super important that we pay the young kids.

They are a part of this company, just like anybody else.

I am, depending on them, just like anybody else.

So for me to recognize that to them and to give them the trust that if they're not there, I can't open the shop.

I can't be there by myself.

You saw how busy it is.

So, I'm depending on them a 100%.

♪ <Kamilla> It's not lower level, but it's a different kind of thing.

It's a food truck.

So, it's tacos.

It's burritos.

It's more like casual food, both Mette and I come very much from, of course, the last couple of years, social gastronomy, but before that Michelin world super tight, tweezers, you know, [unintelligible] yell in the kitchen, don't, and then you walk into this food truck where you're just like, "Oh my God", the other day, I was like, "You guys need to shut up for a minute, "like you talk too much.

"Now you work."

and then they turn around, and they're like "Yeah, yes, boss."

They don't feel at all, you know, attacked or anything.

They're just, then they laugh a little bit to them self and they're "Yeah, we talk too much.

Yeah.

Yeah."

So, then doing a shift at Lola and then taking a shift down there is two different worlds, but these two still have to communicate and have the same philosophy and have the same principles and so on.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Mette> So it's an interesting...moment to merge these two businesses.

♪ It's also this feeling of that you belong somewhere.

I think for a lot of these kids, it's also, that's a great opportunity in this whole culinary industry.

<Jim> Yeah.

<Mette> At the end of the day, I can't stop smiling.

This place makes me insane a lot of days, because it's so tiny.

It's like having eight kids sometimes, and I don't have kids, but then looking at these young dudes, it's like everything.

<Mette> ...Number 60 ♪ <Priscilla> My name is Priscilla.

and I'm going to present the food today.

So, we're going to have a very fresh watermelon and mint salad with feta cheese and olives, and then we have some fresh new potatoes.

<Jim> Examples of samfundssind abound in Copenhagen.

Like Absalon, a formerly abandoned church reimagined as a community hub, offering daily dinners that bring people together from all walks of life to eat, talk, and feel connected.

What better way to break bread with my two new friends.

♪ Of course, the idea that solidarity should extend to neighbors and strangers isn't solely Danish, but just as new Nordic cooking can refocus our attention on seasonality, food relationships and ecosystems, maybe samfundssind can help us more clearly see each other as part of one big human family.

<Claus> This way of approaching life is crossing borders.

There are no borders to it.

I mean, we are not done.

I mean, we are fighting against the clock.

If we want to create a future that is full of opportunities for our grandchildren.

I think that the closer we get to the point of no return, the more people will step up.

Some people say that if only we can get the food systems right, much of the problems that we are facing as a civilization will be solved, and...are we done?

No, we are barely started.

♪ <Jim> On the next episode of The Food Principle.

♪ <Jim> From paring cyclists, to pioneering pollinators, how inspiration and collaboration can shift mindsets and expand ripples of change.

<Speaker 9> Why isn't food still the most important thing in their life because it's affecting their health in how they live on a daily basis.

♪ If the world goes up in flames ♪ ♪ I want to be the one to set it off ♪ ♪ ♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪