How a Copenhagen cook made oatmeal popular

If you ask Squinning Andersen at the beginning of the conversation, how to get everything in the world on the oatmeal, he puts the fork aside. In front of him on a deep window, the windowsill stands in a bowl with fresh feces, fried carrots, pointed cabbage. Then Andersen tells the story of his mother. He does not like to remember this about his childhood and youth. He drank and smoked, he was only twelve years old. On the day of his 15th anniversary, he went to celebrate, sprayed several walls. Graffiti was his thing.

Lass Andersen was born in 1989, his mother fell into depression. When he was seven years old, she committed suicide. He lived with his father in Sidhawnen, the then poorer region of Copenhagen. Today he says that he did not come up with all this that he was angry. Andersen looks right ahead, and for a moment he is far from the early summer mood in front of the window.

Andersen has several photos from the fact that he looks a little drowned. He says that at that time he had zero self -esteem. His 15th birthday, where he celebrated and sprayed several walls, ended with the arrested police. They took him home, woke his father and searched his room. He was sentenced to a juicy fine.

His teachers decided that he was not good enough for high school. While Lass Andersen says this, he barely moves, does not raise his voice and puts his hands on the windowsill next to the plate. He dawned on that he had to quickly break things.

As in all Lutheran societies, the corresponding size is also the corresponding size in Denmark. Perhaps in front of his father, before the world, in front of him. Andersen was looking for something concrete, from which he could start, something that would not stun him. He will start with his weight with a relationship with his body. At that time, he says and grins, healthy food was actually the same as food. In some way, he saw an opportunity for restarting.

For Lass Skjuffing andersen, oatmeal was the embodiment of boredom. Therefore, they had to be healthy, from now on he ate them every day. In the Protestant version prepared with water, even with salt.

In the same way, he was forced to do this, it was like food for survival. There was no joyful departure during basal, without passion. All he really wanted was a normal life. Ovsyanka has become a symbol for this.

Andersen leans back, behind us a cafe in the basement, the random elegance of a reduced object, the space passes to the bar, through the corner layer it extends along two walls. At the time when he started with porridge, Lasse Skzhinning Andersen quickly lost weight. Six months later, he found a friend, but reached high school. He continued, began to experiment, thinking about how he could prepare an oatmeal.

The cafe is called Grèd, a Danish for oatmeal, there is breakfast and lunch. Ovsyanka has become a story of success. On the bypass, because Andersen initially wanted to become a rock star. Or at least a successful musician. To do this, he moved to London in 2010.

At the same time, the northern cuisine became a tendency, the Noma restaurant in the old memory building in the port of Copenhagen was recognized as the best restaurant in the world. The Northern kitchen manifesto, written in 2004, has become part of a diet with ten glasses for spirit, health, stability and quality.

History also includes that in Denmark, since the 1990s, there are several chewers of television chefs in Denmark, acting as a mixture of students -designers and rock musicians. With model friends and driver’s rights on a motorcycle, they did the work of the chef -provar interesting and guaranteed that the Danes developed their own kitchen.

At that time, Lasse Skzhinning Andersen in London began to think more seriously about how Oatmeal could become a concept that will mean a seasonality that will be special. Oatmeal consistent with the regional region of Scandinavian cuisine.

Andersen was about healthy food, which should not be boring. He went through the phase in which he recovered a lot with Chile. On the oatmeal, he says, it was strange. He had other ideas. Not all failure, he says and laughs.

Then his friend Martin visited him. He had some experience in gastronomy and food industry, worked in a bakery. Andersen proposed to open a restaurant for oatmeal. His friend made a hand by the hand about how to fly.

The next morning they had a hangover, and they discussed things again. Next week, Martin stopped his work, sold his Rolex. Andersen returned to Copenhagen. They found a store, an area of ​​46 square meters in Norrebro, a quarter in the form of students, several decades earlier there were still occupied houses.

The first GRØD opened in September 2011. Andersen says. They had to bother, dominate the rhythm of cooking, instructions, tides and floods from customers.

At first it was about breakfast: different flakes, fruit varieties. Compote. Latuk. Andersen says that he is good in turning chaos with a structure. For the midday kitchen, they experimented with dishes without oatmeal: risotto, fried vegetables, asparagus.

His friend Martin at some moment was enough, Andersen stayed with him. Today he controls eight branches in Copenhagen, one in Arkhus, the tenth only for labor in the bank building. In the fall, he opened the store in Oslo. From his culinary book, even ten years, 30,000 copies were sold.

Then Lasse Skjutch andersen brings a classic version that you offer in GrØd from the very beginning: a wide shell, a beautiful porcelain, approximately tedious oatmeal, caramel sauce, with apples and fried almonds. The organic harbor was served for a long time, but there is still a bite, acid acid forms overtones for caramel sauce, the smoky aroma of almonds plays around everything.

“Is it possible?” Andersen asks, a serious interest in his face. The court exudes the stability on which you can build.

With this, you think right away, the day may come close.