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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown: Copenhagen
Aired January 18, 2015 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENE REDZEPI, NOMA RESTAURANT OWNER: Is it your first in Denmark?
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST: I got to be honest. I usually try to avoid clean, orderly countries without massive social problems.
(LAUGHTER)
Yes, I'm here for you, man. Hope you're not the poster boy for the entire country. You should be.
REDZEPI: We go, no?
BOURDAIN: Yes, let's go.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: You were saddled with the weight of best restaurant in the world. I know, this looks totally bogus. It's fantastic.
ALESSANDRO PORCHELI, COOK IT RAW: You need to work 20 hours a day in order to achieve this.
REDZEPI: Come on, guys. They're waiting now. Let's go.
PORCHELI: It's so much less about whoo, you know, it's about bang. And elements, elements. What places have you been that you can compare to NOMA?
BOURDAIN: No place. It's a whole different world.
PORCHELI: Beautiful.
(MUSIC)
BOURDAIN: Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a place, a very special place. A clean, orderly, and nice place.
Usually I hate clean, orderly, and nice.
The air smells fresh and physically fit, statuesque blondes pedaled through streets lined by old buildings and canals.
I read something very disturbing on my way here. Apparently Denmark is, like, the happiest place on earth.
(LAUGHTER) They actually keep stats on this.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Apparently Denmark is far and away number one.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: The happiest, most content place on earth.
REDZEPI: Well, the colleges are the same for everybody.
BOURDAIN: Free?
REDZEPI: Free.
BOURDAIN: That's un-American. That's socialism, isn't it?
REDZEPI: Yes. I mean, here, that's not a bad word.
BOURDAIN: OK, they pay, like, 60 percent of their earnings in taxes. But then they do get things like free health care. Fifty-two weeks maternity leave on full pay.
REDZEPI: When I had my kids two rooms down, that's where the future king had his kids.
BOURDAIN: There's no, like, Beyonce suite?
REDZEPI: No. We're all there. We're all the same. And that makes people more happy.
BOURDAIN: That looks like a nightmare to me.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: By the way, it would be helpful to point out, this show is not about Denmark. It's not about Copenhagen. I'm here for one man.
REDZEPI: Follow this way.
BOURDAIN: All right.
And one restaurant.
REDZEPI: And then we can start.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: NOMA is the place where Rene Redzepi pretty much changed the whole world of gastronomy. For three years in a row, it was named the world's best restaurant by a jury of chefs and food writers who presumably know such things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) coconuts. Also at the same time there's little (INAUDIBLE) flower.
PORCHELI: Danish coconut. Cheers to that.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: And so the question. How does this nice, down-to-earth guy rise to the top of the food world all while presenting things that no one could possibly think would taste that good?
PORCHELI: The flowers.
BOURDAIN: Oh, man.
PORCHELI: They're delicious.
BOURDAIN: I'm not sure, but that's what I'm here to find out.
REDZEPI: Have they had the moss? Did you give them the moss?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
BOURDAIN: We know that NOMA has been said to be the world's best.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a dish that is 20-man hours of work.
BOURDAIN: And what we've heard outside of Denmark is that Rene sources his ingredients exclusively from the Nordic region, mostly from within 60 miles of the restaurant.
Think about that. Denmark is not exactly the Mediterranean. Summers are short. But Rene and crew started, what they're famous for, is foraging for ingredients.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reindeer moss with last year's harvest of set mushrooms.
BOURDAIN: And color me dubious.
PORCHELI: Did you ever eat moss before?
BOURDAIN: No. That is incredible.
PORCHELI: Wow.
BOURDAIN: There's no way that this is going to look convincingly delicious on TV. But it is really delicious.
Alessandro Porcheli is Italian living in Denmark. He worked at NOMA before starting Cook It Raw, the roaming Boy Scout camp for the world's best chefs.
PORCHELI: I met Rene in 2004. Basically the restaurant was just opened. BOURDAIN: Ten years after NOMA's inception, Rene is arguably the most
famous Dane since Hamlet. And so it's happily ever after, right? Not quite.
PORCHELI: It's funny that all this happened actually in Copenhagen. You have all these rules about this law, you know.
BOURDAIN: Right.
PORCHELI: These guidelines were --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: You don't want to stand out.
PORCHELI: You never brag about yourself. It's all understated.
BOURDAIN: The law of Jante, which discourages attention-seeking, is part and parcel of living in Denmark. Danes who think too big are often cut down by their peers.
REDZEPI: It's hard to really make an effort, and if you stand out too much, you know, get off your horse.
BOURDAIN: OK, so let's say you start a restaurant and you announce right away, well, this restaurant is going to be different than anybody else's restaurant, you see (INAUDIBLE) coming here, are people mean originally or do they talk about you? Do they --
REDZEPI: I mean, how much foul language can I use on this show? We very quickly became the big band of the seal --
BOURDAIN: Seal -- people can be so cruel. Do Danes like this place? No? I mean, they're --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: It's got the attention of the whole world.
PORCHELI: Yes, exactly.
BOURDAIN: To tell the truth, food nerds, captains of industry, celebrities, you name it, have been flocking here for years. Some waiting months for a reservation in a 45-seat restaurant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we have the soro leeks? It's marinated in grasshopper (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's marinating. All of this green snow which is made from the (INAUDIBLE) leaves.
BOURDAIN: That's good. The technique, you don't notice it. You notice the flavor. That's delicious. That's really intensely -- it's like I've never tasted a green vegetable that good. REDZEPI: We're in Tubali. You see there's like lawns, people sit
down, the sun is out. The birds are singing. This is where happiness was invented.
BOURDAIN: Tubali Gardens, it is said, is the second-oldest amusement park in the world.
REDZEPI: Strolling here, watch the pantomime that's hundreds of years old. I've only been here once with my kids, actually. I work all the time, unfortunately. This is usually the place where young kids take their first date.
BOURDAIN: How old is this thing?
REDZEPI: I don't know, man. This is made for kids. Does it feel a bit wobbly?
BOURDAIN: (INAUDIBLE) and ancient. I'm a little uncomfortable.
REDZEPI: You see, Copenhagen is dangerous, too.
BOURDAIN: Yes, right. Whoa.
REDZEPI: There you go.
BOURDAIN: This is not bad.
REDZEPI: So there you see. It's a little tiny park. This (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: It's not huge, is it? Squished right in the middle.
REDZEPI: It's like Singapore. You know? All dense together.
BOURDAIN: No death penalty.
REDZEPI: No. Only the sort of the public humiliation that you felt for something.
BOURDAIN: Oh, here we go. Firearms, apparently, it's OK here.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: You know, I've actually never fired a firearm in my life.
BOURDAIN: Really?
REDZEPI: And I've never driven a car.
BOURDAIN: You've never driven a car?
REDZEPI: Never driven a car.
BOURDAIN: OK. This is good. This will be empowering. This could change your whole life.
REDZEPI: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time you fire you need to reload.
REDZEPI: You don't need to tell him, he's American.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: All right.
REDZEPI: So is this a competition?
BOURDAIN: Call it what you like.
REDZEPI: All right. Oh, this is exciting.
BOURDAIN: We definitely have a winner.
REDZEPI: Oh, my god. Not a single one? I have to --
BOURDAIN: That's what we call a nice grouping.
REDZEPI: This is like public school, shooting range.
BOURDAIN: After this, we're going to steal a car. I'll teach you to drive.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: Come on, guys. They're waiting now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Familiar with this one at all?
BOURDAIN: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So traditionally it's served around Christmastime. We call them Abel skewers (ph).
BOURDAIN: You've got a little fish rammed right through. I love it.
PORCHELI: Isn't it sweet?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then there's a pickled cucumber in the middle.
BOURDAIN: That's great.
PORCHELI: Isn't just awesome?
BOURDAIN: Very traditional flavors.
REDZEPI: There's all these old school restaurants that have been here hundreds of years. The herring, the rye bread, the smoked fish, the traditional stuff. You know? There we go. Thank you, my good man. Welcome to the happiest place --
BOURDAIN: On earth.
REDZEPI: On earth.
BOURDAIN: There we go.
REDZEPI: No ice. Smoked eel. Pureed shrimps. Pickled herring. These tiny little shrimps, it's one of the few seasonal offerings that Danes look forward to. Our eating traditions are not that big here. Historically, we've eaten for survival. It was fuel to us.
BOURDAIN: These things were not exactly the most fun bunch. It was sinful to take too much pleasure in food. You know. You're sitting at the table, like oh, my god, that's so good. It's delicious. You're already going down a slippery slope of who knows what other kinds of behaviors.
REDZEPI: You know, my father is an immigrant here. I'm not even a full Dane.
BOURDAIN: Your father was Macedonian?
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Mother --
REDZEPI: From the former Yugoslavia.
BOURDAIN: And then you left Yugoslavia at what age?
REDZEPI: Fourteen. People make fun of me when I say I've never driven a car. I never had a Coca-Cola until I was, like, 17. It just wasn't in a small little village where there's two cars. The first food memory I have is also from there and it was my father. And the day before we'd been into the mountain picking chestnuts. And I remember it so vividly as a little child, I woke up and I saw my father roasting chestnuts.
And then I start hearing all these things popping. Twenty minutes later, they were in a bowl and my aunt poured milk that she had just taken from the cow and we had that for breakfast. It was so natural that we went to the mountain for chestnuts, you grew your food yourself. These sort of experiences growing up, they really shaped the type of cook I am today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REDZEPI: So now you have a generation of young cooks like myself and they're all over town looking for the flavor of a region. What is the flavor? What are the ingredients we have and how do we combine them in a way that tells something of where you are in the world?
BOURDAIN: Between me and nature, there's not so much love. Nature is where bugs live. But I'm learning reluctantly over time how much I've been missing. Rene's proclivity to scrounge around for flavorful stuff that grows wild --
REDZEPI: Welcome to the beach. You see good old Danish feet.
BOURDAIN: Pretty much kick started the restaurant world's now widely emulated practice of foraging.
REDZEPI: You see all this? Grass. But actually these are succulents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're doing beach cabbage for them, no?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PORCHELI: Rene, since the beginning, is thinking about how to put into a plate what's around you.
BOURDAIN: Well, you need to be like a 19th century naturalist, you're going to have to do this.
PORCHELI: Yes, you need to be a (INAUDIBLE). A naturalist.
REDZEPI: Chew on this. You taste cilantro?
BOURDAIN: Yes. Cilantro.
REDZEPI: Disguised as grass. Here, here, here. It's everywhere.
Good to go?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Service, service.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the raw is on the top deck. (INAUDIBLE) paprikas around the outside.
BOURDAIN: So I know these ingredients, we were plucking them just today.
PORCHELI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Wow.
PORCHELI: This should be the future. Let's go and forage, guys. Come on, kids.
REDZEPI: There you go. Sea beans. Salty, juicy, crunchy.
BOURDAIN: I mean, I'd look -- if I were looking at this at home, I would very much be thinking, come on, man. It's grass. It's grass.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: It's green stuff. It all tastes the same.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: It totally doesn't. REDZEPI: It totally doesn't.
BOURDAIN: Now is some of this stuff poison?
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Have you ever eaten something that --
REDZEPI: Oh, yes. On-the-spot diarrhea.
BOURDAIN: Really? The dark side of foraging.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: Two fish heads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
BOURDAIN: Growing your own food, finding your own food.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: That was life in Macedonia.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: But for a lot of people right now, it is an affectation.
REDZEPI: The worst moments, the worst meals are when people are just following a sort of culinary trend. And they will say, there's an edible. But it tastes like -- but it's edible and it's foraged, therefore I put it on the menu. You know, it's going to be -- go on the fish no matter what.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beautiful. Grilled pike heads with the beach herbs you foraged yesterday.
PORCHELI: OK.
BOURDAIN: You just pick off every little bit. But I think even at its most ludicrous manifestation, surely it is a positive thing that people are actually starting to look around and see, where it grows --
REDZEPI: It still is good. Because people are being connected to the place they're in. What's edible and what's not. What is there to eat.
Here we go. Jackpot. This is mustard, beach mustard. In three weeks, this is gone. New things come up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sour dough bread. It's (INAUDIBLE) butter that has not been churned all the way. It's called virgin butter.
BOURDAIN: Oh, god.
PORCHELI: This is amazing, huh? BOURDAIN: Butter like this where you can pretty much taste what the
cow ate. You know, anyone who's milked a cow, this is a flavor of childhood. The fact is, there aren't a lot of people left to -- where I come from who milked a cow.
PORCHELI: This one is becoming more important to what these guys are doing. It's a relationship also that they had with the farmers. Delicious (INAUDIBLE) dabbed with oil.
REDZEPI: So this is Soren's farm, but we always say our farm. We feel like it's our place.
BOURDAIN: Soren is Rene's primary supplier of farm meat and vegetables.
REDZEPI: Look at the soil here. You see all the muscle shells?
BOURDAIN: Yes.
REDZEPI: These are shellfish. Because this used to be marshland.
BOURDAIN: Like Rene, he's not your ordinary Dane and his farm is unlike the others around here. This used to be monoculture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Fifteen hectares with carrot.
BOURDAIN: Just carrots. And now how many -- what are you growing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Between 120 and 170 different things.
BOURDAIN: True, there are tractors and rows where potatoes and carrots grow. But much of what's happening here is a mix of wild and cultivated.
REDZEPI: This is wild angelica. That's chives and the purple flowers is --
BOURDAIN: Yes?
REDZEPI: Yes. Wild onions. And you could grow them here. Let's grow some for next year. Here you go. First time you come up here, you go into this, like oh, flower garden. And you will say no, no, no, this is the leek field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're so nice.
REDZEPI: Touching them like they're jewels.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are jewels.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: Let's grab a bunch of these for lunch, no?
It's going?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
BOURDAIN: The pressure in farming is to have a monoculture and to provide year in, year out what you know is going to sell and what the market demands.
REDZEPI: Do you mind grabbing a few of these plants? They're going to grow up, so don't take the root.
BOURDAIN: It's very, very hard for a small guy to say you know what, I'm not going to grow carrots anymore, I'm going to grow all bunch of different interesting things and I'm going to grow them as well as I possibly can.
Yes, this is pretty much a first for me.
REDZEPI: This is the first time you fall to your knees for a green plant?
BOURDAIN: Yes.
REDZEPI: How long for leeks?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had leek up, two leek up.
BOURDAIN: Do you think we'll ever reach a point where guys like Soren will be in a very good place?
PORCHELI: I think if we cut the middle men, guys, the producers, the farmer, to talk directly with a guy like Rene.
REDZEPI: Nobody ever teaches you that the symbiosis you need to have intact is with these people that grow the food.
BOURDAIN: Right.
REDZEPI: You're never taught that as a cook, which is strange.
Can we have another leek that looks more similar in size? OK. Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think also respect to your chefs, how should you know anything about this landscape. I've been here for 30 years and I just know small tiny part.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So just scoop it up.
BOURDAIN: I think we picked these yesterday.
PORCHELI: Oh yes?
BOURDAIN: Oh, man. That is the meatiest (INAUDIBLE) vegetable I've ever had.
PORCHELI: Yes.
REDZEPI: Maybe we'll cook this for lunch spiced with a tartar. Chop that up with the freshly slaughtered meat, one of Soren's cows. Hey, what else?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The asparagus?
REDZEPI: Yes, let's do that. I'm hungry, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Asparagus. Beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go.
REDZEPI: And maybe just one dollop there in the middle, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Asparagus. With this (INAUDIBLE). That's why we have the branch. Do not eat that branch however.
BOURDAIN: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Underneath is a small pile of tender (INAUDIBLE). Grilled green asparagus sauce and a little bit of fresh green paste.
BOURDAIN: That is incredible.
PORCHELI: Wow. The flavor of this, huh?
REDZEPI: So this is actually beer made from asparagus.
BOURDAIN: It's tasty.
REDZEPI: Yes. What's the meat?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Veal.
REDZEPI: Veal? What was the name of the cow?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 76300330.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: Chef, do you want to do this tartar?
BOURDAIN: What are you thinking, just hack up the meat?
REDZEPI: Hack up the meat. It already looks good. I'm going to go on the asparagus and the leeks. Clean them up, grill them. Sun lotion on these guys. Do you want to do a potato salad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
REDZEPI: What you would put on the tartar. Wild onions. A bit of this horseradish. That's the chives. Chive flowers.
BOURDAIN: OK. A little salt on the leek and a little cheese?
REDZEPI: Yes. That's the angelica. Take all these flowers and we mix that in. Some vinegar. That looks like vinaigrette for the grilled asparagus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A few eggs from my mother's rebirth.
BOURDAIN: Done.
REDZEPI: Didn't take us 10 minutes, but we have four courses. This is like three Michelin stars, chef.
BOURDAIN: Oh, yes.
REDZEPI: Oh, man.
BOURDAIN: Perfect. Look at that.
REDZEPI: Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
BOURDAIN: And that egg. What an egg.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Do you eat like this all the time?
REDZEPI: I bring my kids up here. All the staff comes here often. This becomes your reference frame for how fresh an asparagus should be? Just harvest. Just cooked. Just eat them.
BOURDAIN: When I think a place like this, in addition to being the best restaurant in the world and whatever else, it offers a real possibility that there is food around that with a little effort, or a lot of effort, you can make into something really delicious.
PORCHELI: That is the hard thing.
BOURDAIN: Right.
PORCHELI: To change the way that people think about food. Not just the 35 people that can afford to come and eat here at NOMA.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for joining.
REDZEPI: Thank you, chef.
BOURDAIN: It's magnificent. Yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: There are always going to be some people out there who hate the very idea of your existence.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: From the very minute they even think about you. There's a Danish expression for not wanting to stand out.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Not wanting to talk about yourself.
REDZEPI: Yes. That's called Jante law. The law of Jante.
BOURDAIN: With yeast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeast broth.
BOURDAIN: It's beautiful.
REDZEPI: Here we are 10 years ago, we're opening, we're saying we're going to try something else. Stuff like that in that time was just unheard of. It was beyond stupid. And why do you even try? Why are you fiddling with stupid concepts?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a broth of wild lobster claws. And (INAUDIBLE) petals.
BOURDAIN: Wow. Look at this. This is very complex. I know in the beginning, a lot of Danes were calling him the (INAUDIBLE). They were laughing at him.
PORCHELI: It's a very new thing. You know, food here in Denmark. It's not something that they have, like, we have in Italy or they have in France.
REDZEPI: No, here, it's a different story. You have a huge part of people that are still so much in love with the old world. I mean, I've even been told that I have fascist tendencies. There's been op- eds written in Danish papers linking what we do at the restaurant to some of the most horrible moments in recent history.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the tail of the lobster, with a little bit of the head juices underneath (INAUDIBLE) leaves. Use your hands.
BOURDAIN: I will. It's luxurious. So how is it changing?
REDZEPI: That's what's interesting. In 10 years, it's really gone from, you know sealed to igniting a new confidence in this city, in this part of the world that I never grew up with.
BOURDAIN: A possible forebearer to this new challenging of the status quo can be found right in the heart of this great-laced Danish capital.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Christiania is one of the most awesome places in the world which is not very gantalorish to say.
BOURDAIN: The well established enclave of hippie, anarchists, squatters. Sounds about as attractive as being sentenced to life at a fish concert. But there are some interesting features of Christiania.
There's no government to intrude on your personal freedom. You're free to behave as eccentric or a normal a fashion as you wish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, I mean, you can be the freak that you are, and if you want to spend your day talking to a tree, you can do that without being frowned upon.
BOURDAIN: Razinga and his friend Joker are in local government, such as it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christania has been here for some 40 years. It was a military area that was abandoned and then occupied by squatters and hippies. Despite the fact that the different governments didn't really appreciate what was going on here, nobody actually had the will or strength to put people out.
BOURDAIN: Who makes up the traction?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do.
BOURDAIN: What about the essentials? You know, electric, water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We buy it from providers. But we do it as a commune, it's collective, we pay only one bill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But what I like about living here is the fact that my kids get to walk around the streets without worrying about being run over by a car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no hot roads. No cars running in the streets. I mean, it's like a little village. It's very secure.
BOURDAIN: Are you a hippie?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got two eggs smoking now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So right down there, we have Pusher Street, which is probably the most famous part of Christiania.
BOURDAIN: The green section, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: You buy weed and hash oil, hashish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I would never do that as a responsible journalist, but I'm interested in investigating it.
(LAUGHTER)
Pusher Street. It is a beloved institution here. You are free to try an array of cannabis products.
Theoretically, by the way, marijuana is, like, not legal in Denmark. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there's a great tolerance for marijuana here
and I think that's because it isn't really harmful. People who smoke too much, maybe they pass out.
BOURDAIN: Right. Quail egg cooked. Wow. That's like the greatest thing ever. That's a perfect dish.
PORCHELI: Perfect dish.
BOURDAIN: I want more of those.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So here you go.
BOURDAIN: Thank you. So there's nobody in charge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am. I'm in charge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The only problem is everybody else is, too.
BOURDAIN: Yes. It seems utopia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have the same problems as anybody, but we try to solve them in a different way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And one of the ways we try to solve the sort of challenges is by embracing people as much as we can. And trying to make space as much as we can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we have two peas ready for table four? Can I go over that now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Extraordinary. I was reading something that's very un- American in its concept, which is don't be afraid to fail.
REDZEPI: Yes. When we did this issue, to us it was a very big moment. Because we burnt it by mistake. And then, we thought OK, it's a mistake. Let's see what happens. We cooked it. Then we had a new spice.
BOURDAIN: That's indescribably delicious. All cook books, particularly American cook books, are written from the point of view that if you only follow this recipe, it will turn out great.
REDZEPI: You're safe. This is what we try to talk about every day in the kitchen with the cooks on Saturday Night Projects.
BOURDAIN: Apparently this is when you invite members of your crew to put up a new dish for comment.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: After each grueling workweek concludes, cooks from every level of the brigade stay late to submit their newest culinary ideas. Everybody's in on this? REDZEPI: Everybody's in.
BOURDAIN: This could be a very uncomfortable -- you're heading it out.
REDZEPI: This forum is about failure. So yes.
BOURDAIN: All right. Let's see what you got.
REDZEPI: Luke, go for it.
BOURDAIN: In no point in my career would I have wanted to subject myself to this kind of mass scrutiny.
REDZEPI: No, but watch. It's not bad. It's not bad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can be bad.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I have for you, chef, are fermented apple tea. This one I did with razor clam and some chamomile as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is lamb's tongue. Cooked for 10 hours in 70 degrees. It just ferments in water and 2 percent salt. And this is (INAUDIBLE) fondue with brown butter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what we have here is ice cream with some barley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mushroom ice cream and fermented barley sauce.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I think the lamb's tongue is a great ingredient. Personally I'm not getting what they call robbery brought to the party.
REDZEPI: The razor clams are a bit sweet. And with this broth, it's quite sweet. So it becomes very one-dimensional.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why can't you do that for your next project? Dry salt versus brine salt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He uses things that I would never use in a desert. And it tastes good. I like it.
BOURDAIN: Given a choice of a traditional dessert and this, I'm very, very, very happy with this. I think it's delicious. Really.
(APPLAUSE)
REDZEPI: Thank you. Who's next?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So here we have a dish of strawberries and cream. I just decided to go on my bike and see what I could get. So all the flowers that are here, the lady let me pick them in her garden. So I have strawberries that are pickled in rose vinegar. And the creme fresh at the base that's been infused with burnt roses and rose pollen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we just clap or --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
BOURDAIN: And then that might well end up on the menu?
REDZEPI: No. This is not about putting things on the menu. No. I mean, if somebody makes a masterpiece, it's their masterpiece.
BOURDAIN: Really?
REDZEPI: Yes, yes. Of course.
BOURDAIN: Isn't it your historical imperative as the chef to take his good work and innovation and put it on the menu and take credit for it as your own? I mean, that's the way it's been done for centuries.
REDZEPI: This is not the point here.
BOURDAIN: The pursuit of enlightenment and knowledge is its own reward?
REDZEPI: To me, yes.
Is that it? Cheers, everybody.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REDZEPI: Table four is being cleared. Let's start dressing. They're waiting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
PORCHELI: I mean now I travel a lot. You know, I want to be number one in the world. I was in Mexico, the Yucatan. They don't even know how to make a tortilla. They don't even know what a tortilla is made of. They come to lose touch with what tradition is. That looks good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Merci, chef.
REDZEPI: It's good for you to try this, the herring, the rye bread, the smoked fish, the traditional stuff.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
REDZEPI: You know, because when you grow up as a cook here, you think of this as old fashion. We don't see it as an inspiration for your future endeavors as a cook.
All right. Fellows, the next thing we serve you is flat bread. Very traditional here. And we spice ours with chutes of spruce and oak tree.
PORCHELI: This is amazing. Amazing.
BOURDAIN: Yes. That's good.
PORCHELI: Sophistication. But it's something that is so down to earth flavor-wise.
BOURDAIN: No doubt about it. That seems both really classic and totally new.
How are you doing? How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Cheers.
BOURDAIN: Cheers.
I'm learning, Danes may be stiff, but they sure as hell know how to drink. Nils is a Danish renaissance man. Drinker, sailor, charter tour boat operator, musician.
So you're a neighbor of Rene.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have known him from the absolute beginning. And when NOMA -- can we start now?
BOURDAIN: Yes. Yes, we're going. Well, what did you think of him when you first met him?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw an ordinary man. He fight for what he think about.
BOURDAIN: He had a vision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, a vision. He have a vision and fight for this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicely done, chef.
BOURDAIN: There we are.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at the beautiful girl there.
BOURDAIN: Cheers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go.
BOURDAIN: What was that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gammel Dansk.
BOURDAIN: What's in it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Gammel Dansk.
BOURDAIN: What is that? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know exactly how you make that. But it
has been drinking in Denmark for many years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we have Gammel Dansk. It's a Danish bitter that has about 30 different herbs or so. So we made an ice cream with dehydrated milk and (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: It was delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, here we go. Gammel Dansk. It is good.
BOURDAIN: It works.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is good.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It works. It works. Look at this. Where you come from, New York?
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes.
BOURDAIN: How do you know? What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It works. He says.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are perfect.
BOURDAIN: What would traditional Danish food be for you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Potatoes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two potatoes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And some kind of meat and sauce.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you taste the sauce? Yes?
REDZEPI: Hello, fellows. We fermented barley, and we cooked the potatoes in that and served with sturgeon roll from the lakes.
PORCHELI: Wow.
BOURDAIN: It has homemade whiskey -- I know the flavor well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go. What are we doing? I'm a little bit hungry.
BOURDAIN: There was a famous Danish national late-night dish.
John's Hotdog?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I'll have the deluxe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one's an organic sausage.
BOURDAIN: Organic sausage?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Made with wild garlic and bacon.
BOURDAIN: Sounds good to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made his own mustard.
BOURDAIN: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Onions are pickled in beer.
BOURDAIN: Whoa.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go.
BOURDAIN: That's a classic one.
All my happiest moments seem to revolve around meat in two forms. That's superb. It's really good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't thrill me when I eat that.
BOURDAIN: Only the moments when you look good. These onions are awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's the way. You have to make something new.
BOURDAIN: But respect the classics.
PORCHELI: This is what we should transmit to the young guys. The passion to present something on a plate that is delicious, also make sense of your own environment, something that is yours. If you don't have a clear (INAUDIBLE) one's tradition, how can you know?
BOURDAIN: Come to Copenhagen, NOMA for lunch, John's for dinner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Gammel Dansk.
BOURDAIN: Right.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: Just across from NOMA, located in a converted houseboat, an entity separate from the restaurant. The place where Rene set up to further ideas and experimentation.
REDZEPI: Ben is one of the guys in charge here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nutmeg is a bit of a hallucinogenic.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I decided to make something (INAUDIBLE) rich but also nutmeg. Leave it for a while and then we'll see what happens.
BOURDAIN: So it's hallucinogenic fish sauce potentially?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In theory. Some of the things that we're doing, really, I mean, they are just pure experimentation for experimentation's sake.
REDZEPI: And it's pretty damn delicious.
BOURDAIN: I like that.
REDZEPI: It's another food item on your shelf. And me as a cook, that's what I want. These are two years old cherries with the cherry pits. And wild roses, five years old wild roses. Very deep, intense.
PORCHELI: This is amazing. Amazing.
BOURDAIN: But they're just talking about what taste good, now they're talking about will this taste good in two years if you ferment it or age it or dry it.
REDZEPI: We like to ferment it. We add bacteria to it, so that it needs three years of time, and then it becomes ultra delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The diversity available to us, you're looking at fermentations, you're looking at different bacteria, looking at different molds, yeast, all sorts. It's absolutely enormous.
BOURDAIN: There is stuff rotting in jars, these experiments of fermentation and flavor. You're all doing some sinister -- down there. I know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is the ferment of canapodium, a wild type of spinach which grows around here. And no one uses them. Maybe even reminiscent of (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: Serious (INAUDIBLE).
REDZEPI: And this is from a weed that grows everywhere. If you do it with gooseberries. Like to ferment gooseberries. You get golden drops of perfection.
Can we have two berries on four?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
REDZEPI: All right, fellas. The next thing we serve you is the dried in juices from last year's harvest of black currant, and then we wrap it in wild roses that we've had in vinegar for two years. PORCHELI: Acidity. Creamy.
BOURDAIN: It's like superpower.
I need to ask about this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to ask about this. Well, this is pretty interesting. This is born out of a desire to study mummification. Everyone used to eat mummies, apparently. They were considered a panacea. So this has been cured with resins, alcohol, spices, with honey, with (INAUDIBLE). All kinds of things that would have been used --
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- in a mummification and embalming process. Let's taste it.
REDZEPI: Let's take it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here you go. So it's quite moldy.
REDZEPI: You mean that in a (INAUDIBLE) way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I mean, it's an experiment. You know, like -- I mean it's a six-month-old piece of raw deer. So I suppose it's somewhat inevitable.
BOURDAIN: It's not unpleasant.
REDZEPI: Interesting.
BOURDAIN: Tastes like Egyptian.
(LAUGHTER)
REDZEPI: We just have one project funded. Deliciousness is an argument for (INAUDIBLE). So deliciousness is an argument for eating insects.
BOURDAIN: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we have grilled onions and fermented pears. And salt made out of wood ants.
BOURDAIN: Wood ants.
PORCHELI: Wood ants. Yes.
BOURDAIN: Cool. That's delicious.
PORCHELI: It's amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, some of the ants we've been experimenting with. It's like you eat it, it's like zing, it's like excitement in your mouth. Everyone is invited. The other ones, they need a lot of work. Here we've got wax moth larvae mousse (INAUDIBLE) which is with hazel nut and then you've got (INAUDIBLE) sauce. This is bee larvae. Like little lumps of fat.
BOURDAIN: This tastes like insects.
REDZEPI: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next taste, fermented fish, herrings. We stuffed them with molded greens. And these have been here since January. So it's been filtered and then put with juniper and with (INAUDIBLE) berries, a little squirt of aged apple vinegar.
BOURDAIN: Wow. That's delicious.
REDZEPI: That's good, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: That's lethally good.
REDZEPI: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I can think of 10 different ways I'd like to eat that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely.
BOURDAIN: Standing up, sitting down, with beer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being fed. So it takes awhile to stumble across these things. But slowly but surely they come out of the woodwork.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's have some great fish.
BOURDAIN: Delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers, guys.
BOURDAIN: Cheers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mid-summer's day. Longest day of the year.
BOURDAIN: The Danes to mark the mid-summer's eve gather and partake in traditions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the sun comes out, we salute you.
BOURDAIN: Like a joined picnics, building bonfires.
REDZEPI: There's the fire.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
REDZEPI: There's going to be a fire.
BOURDAIN: And burning witches.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We made those fires back in the days to keep the witches away. Because they thought all the witches was meeting on this solstice.
OK, where's the pork?
REDZEPI: This is the roast pork.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very traditional. Without this the Danes could not live.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we have pork skin and chocolate. With freeze-dried blackberries.
BOURDAIN: Cool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You guys enjoy.
BOURDAIN: Thank you. Wow, that's wild.
PORCHELI: That's wild. It's the flavor of Denmark, right? Roast pork with (INAUDIBLE), red cabbage, pickles.
BOURDAIN: That is a serious sandwich.
(LAUGHTER)
That's just amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, a rainbow. This is almost too pretty.
(LAUGHTER)
And there you go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Super cool, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't we have the strawberries? With triple cream, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's delicious, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we have wild blueberry desserts. So the sandwich, one for each of you. And the first of the wild strawberries.
BOURDAIN: Beautiful.
PORCHELI: Look at this. Like a picnic in the park, yes?
BOURDAIN: Wow. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the mid-summer day in Denmark.
BOURDAIN: Wow. Look at the witch. Burn, witch, burn.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You done?
BOURDAIN: Terrific, thank you.
PORCHELI: Unbelievable.
BOURDAIN: Look, I've eaten at a lot of great restaurants around the world, and there was still a little part of me that was saying, you know, this is going to be bull --
(LAUGHTER)
The guy's out in the field yanking weeds out of the ground. I really didn't expect it to be as good as it was. It was delicious. It was amazingly delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amazing.
BOURDAIN: Yes, I thought it was amazing.
PORCHELI: It's not just about coming up with the greatest concept. It's just assembling what is out there in a new and beautiful, authentic and delicious way.
BOURDAIN: He has single-handedly transformed everybody's understanding of Nordic cuisines.
PORCHELI: With all the dishes, they all tell a little bit of a story. You know, of the land, the tradition.
BOURDAIN: But always delicious. Always, always, always delicious first. You may be an ordinary guy, grounded, comes from a poor family. But he has big dreams. He wants to change the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. And we can change it. Never forget that. We can do that.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Anderson Cooper.
It was a hot summer afternoon in Erie, Pennsylvania. Into a small branch bank stepped a man wearing a white T-shirt and what he said was a bomb strapped underneath. He turned out to be a local pizza delivery man. The bomb turned out to be very real.
So real that for the first time in the history of the FBI, a bank robbery was elevated to major case status. And that was only the beginning. The beginning of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI. One that would unravel into murder, a scavenger hunt with life and death at stake and a conspirator who is still walking free today.
Drew Griffin has the story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most bizarre bank robbery in the history of the FBI.
(On camera): Who came up with the idea? And what was the motivation?
