Feeding a laureate

THE FOOD CLUB

I'm not suggesting that Chef Mark Phoenix is celebrating the shared Nobel peace prize by Dr R K Pachauri with a wild party, but he probably allowed himself a tiny moment of celebration all the same.

You see, he was in Delhi until a fortnight ago "" his second stint in India, during which time he re-looked at Indian food, however hastily. He was here to mastermind the Swedish food festival at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, but he is one chef whose day job is high profile, even glamorous.

Chef Phoenix heads the team at Stockholm's Townhall where the annual Nobel banquet is held. He presides over the forty chefs who are necessary to put together the feast that hosts Nobel prize winners from all over the world, their guests, a slew of diplomats and every dignitary from Stockholm itself.

One thousand, three hundred and fifty people attend the banquet every year, and each menu is carefully composed and equally carefully noted down for posterity.

Why Chef Phoenix probably has a personal interest in the Indian winner is because although each banquet menu is identifiably Swedish, tiny accents from the countries of the handful of winners give it a memorable touch.

"We would never change our cuisine," says the chef, "but we would use a hint of an ingredient that would be familiar to the winner from that country."

I wonder what Chef Phoenix has planned for Dr Pachauri, and whether the latter will even recognise the ingredient, because it cannot, by definition, scream "" it has to whisper. Used as we are to myriad spices in our food, a single one, in a single dish in an entire banquet, may be a challenge to unearth.

It is not cheap mounting a spectacle of this scale, so the guild has hit upon the brilliant idea of keeping the hall open throughout the year to members of the paying public. You get to order the year of your choice.

Thus, Japanese tourists are understandably enthusiastic about the years when Japanese nationals won the Nobel. Inexplicably, there are years that are very popular, and others whose menus have never been ordered at all.

You have almost 100 menus to choose from: the Nobel dinner has been on since 1912. Open only for dinner "" this is one meal you won't turn up for in your jeans and faded tee "" you have to have a minimum of eight guests, give a minimum of one week's notice and be prepared to spend Swedish Kronor 1,395 per guest.

It is such a challenge to make a Nobel menu because, in theory, it has to be replicable every day of the year. It is also the reason why they need one week's lead time: to hunt game meats and birds, should the need arise.

Chef Phoenix, an Englishman who married a Swedish national, speaks fluent Swedish and is obviously passionate about his adopted country and its cuisine.

But it doesn't tell us what Dr Pachauri is going to be served.

marryamhreshii@yahoo.co.in