I always tell my friends that as long as they can cook real good food and that they completely aware of what they are doing, they might as well consider themselves as chefs. But, this notion will be a source of disagreement for my chef friends. Of course, being a chef means being professional. When can we say that one is a chef? When he or she has already cooked for peoples of different tastes and has satisfied their taste buds.
I met a guy, a Norwegian, who has a very intense inclination in cooking. He has a culinary television program in his mother land. Although his cooking style has been hailed as superb, he does not consider himself a cook. When asked to describe the
Norwegian cuisine, he quickly said that it is simple and spicy. Oh, yeah? Just how SIMPLE and SPICY can Norwegian recipes be? Viestad, the host, proved to have cooked hundreds of simply put up gourmet recipes. Truly, most of his recipes have for ingredients the easy-to-find ingredients.
According to Viestad, Norway has plenty of resources. But, to my surprise, he also admitted that Norwegians had a difficult time discovering these resources because for a long time, pizza is the most popular food in Norway. Years after the French settlement in the
peaceful Norwegian territories, the people started reclaiming the heritage they have temporarily lost. Right now, Norwegian cuisine is dominated by spices, exotic flavorings that set the distinction between Norwegian cuisines and other Scandinavian recipes. Alongside this exotic seasonings are the seafood dishes that brought the Norwegian cuisine to the pedestal of gourmet cooking. It is safe to say that cooks are already discovering the unexplored corners of Norway in search for the rarest herbs, vegetables, and fruits. All these are incorporated in the cuisine.
