A Scandinavian TV Show Makes Eating Trees Look Cool

Get ready for a new taste of Nordic cuisine filled with some questionable choices

Nordic ceviche, courtesy of the hottest Scandinavian show you’ve probably never heard of

As someone whose only connection to Scandinavian culture is through her husband and her adopted married name, I know next to nothing about Swedish food (except for IKEA, of course) and even less about Norwegian food. I knew about lefse, the Norwegian flatbread made with potatoes, flour and milk that looks very much like a thin tortilla. I also knew about lutefisk, that clear, glossy dried fish cured in lye, which sounds as delectable as eating grass treated with chemicals, something that unfortunately, my dog does a lot of. (She never learns). And of course, I knew vaguely that Norway is surrounded by water, thanks to this thing called a map, that it’s really beautiful and somehow associated with the Vikings.

But I digress.

I admit, my lack of knowledge was quickly filled when I discovered a food show called New Scandinavian Cooking, available on local public television stations — in my hometown, it’s called PBS/Oregon Public Broadcasting. New Scandinavian Cooking is perhaps one of the most unique food shows I’ve ever watched, mainly because it promotes, or rather, suggests that eating rocks, drinking tree sap and harvesting juniper berries are cool activities. I kid you…