This is a book about the culinary culture of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and some island in the cold sea. There are 700 recipes in this massive book that surveys centuries of careful recipe development. These lands have only 160 growing days and 200 days of cold and darkness. Grains and fish dominate the recipes, which are based on methods to preserve the product of a short summer for that long winter season.
A world class chef, Nilsson's restaurant Faviken serves just twelve guests a night, Located in rural, central Sweden, Nilsson forages, fishes and hunts to have his menu be the utmost in "local."
His curiosity about Nordic cusines, what it is and how it got that way, led him to write this book. Years of research went into assembling a collection of 11,000 food articles that had to be reduced to the 700 recipes appearing here. The Nordic Cook Book is a cultural milestone. You can read my full review over at Huffington.
Yes, yes, there are meatball recipes. But you want to look at the breads and the fish.