With the opening of Grünhaus Nordic Street Eats in Montpelier, Vermonters are finally getting a taste of Scandinavian food. But this week and next, there’s a very special way to enjoy excellent Swedish food for next to nothing.
Last night, I was the oldest nonemployee at the University Marché in UVM’s Living and Learning Building. I was there to taste food prepared by Göran Päandel Berggren, a member of Sodexo’s Global Chef program and executive chef at GE Healthcare in Uppsala, Sweden. Berggren’s path to Sodexo was a common one. Once a Stockholm restaurateur, he found that managing the cafeteria where he feeds thousands of workers each day allows him more time with his family.
Each meal that Berggren will prepare during his visit to Vermont features several courses. And there are a number of opportunities to meet the chatty chef and try his delicacies.
He’ll be at Redstone Unlimited Dining from 4:30 to 8 p.m. tonight, then will serve lunch at the Davis Center’s Marketplace from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday. He’ll head to dining halls at Champlain and St. Michael’s colleges at the end of this week and next week.
Last night, each three-course meal ($9.99) began with a bowl of pea soup.
It may not look like much in its compostable paper cup, but the soup was about as perfect as a pea soup can be. The thick potage got its saline balance from salt-cured pork shoulder. No additional salt was necessary. There was plenty of the tender meat in the bowl, and meltingly soft carrots. I wished I had ordered another bowl on the side. Berggren’s history lesson made the soup even more interesting: According to legend, it was a poisoned bowl of pea soup that killed 16th-century king Erik XIV.
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