Secrets of the Swedish Terroir (Eng)

Background

Swedish gastronomy is at an exciting stage and garnering success internationally. We have some of the world’s best chefs and restaurants and our ingredients and artisans are world-class. With this comes a responsibility to nurture and develop our food heritage, our produce, our artisans and this unique position. In response to this, Gastronomi Sweden and its prominent chefs have rallied around a manifesto: Secrets of the Swedish Terroir. A concept and a model that will help us to jointly shape the future of Swedish food.

Sweden’s nine climate zones create our country’s unique variety of produce with varying character and flavor depending on the season. Secrets of the Swedish Terroir is therefore about rediscovering our environment and our gastronomic heritage and working together with nature in the creation of a new, Swedish gastronomy. The character of the produce is the starting point for discovery, to innovate and nurture Swedish artisanship which has been the reason, throughout history, that our produce has tasted absolutely delicious and lasted throughout the year, from north to south, from east to west.

Manifesto

Sweden is one of the few countries in the world with nine climatic zones. This provides a number of different conditions for a variety of flora and fauna, both in the wild and in cultivated lands, which creates a unique diversity of materials with different regional characteristics. Swedish produce, because of our climate zones, are not the same in each area of the country, nor throughout the year. This has influenced our cooking throughout history and taught us to work together with nature. Gastronomi Sweden, our country’s top chefs and all who wish to join us now around Secrets of the Swedish Terroir: this is the doctrine of our natural environment, our food heritage, our unique raw ingredients, the Swedish gastronomic artisans and the future of food. We are certain that it is out of these nine climate zones that together we will create the new Swedish food of the future.

• Secrets of the Swedish Terroir will lead to greater knowledge, pride and joy around food, produce, processing and cooking - both nationally and internationally.

• Secrets of the Swedish Terroir offers knowledge about how the different climate zones affect our produce and how we can preserve, develop, innovate and enjoy our gastronomic heritage.

• Secrets of the Swedish Terroir is a new basis for generating interest and conveying knowledge about our uniquely Swedish ingredients and how Swedish chefs think and work.

• Secrets of the Swedish Terroir takes the doctrine about the importance of local produce a step further and can be seen as knowledge that will be passed on to the next generation.

"Together we are creating the future of unique food in Sweden."

Mathias Dahlgren, Honorary President, Bocuse d´Or Europe 2014   

Fredrik Eriksson,  Competition mangager, Bocuse d´Or Europe 2014 

Per Lundin, Chairman, Gastronomi Sverige AB