Feast like a viking this weekend at the Southbank Centre

Forget hygge and lagom, unleash your inner Norseman at the Southbank this weekend 
Ice and fire: Breakfast buffets and lunchtime feasts are on the menu this weekend
Robert Henriksson

Maybe it’s the viking in all of us, but we’ve always had a soft spot for Nordic culture. Longboats are so last millennium, and now friendly cultural memes invade our shores from across the North Sea instead: The Volcano clap, Scandi noir and the inescapable winter leitmotifs “hygge” and “lagom”.

In a bid to both have a jolly good time and unpick some clumsy stereotypes, The Great Nordic Feast is rowing up the Thames and setting up shop at the Southbank Centre this weekend, bringing with it a celebration of the best of Scandinavia. Call it a charm offensive.

“While each Nordic country is unique, we share some similarities in our national cuisines and way of life,” says Fia Gulliksson, creative director of the feast. “Our fresh, clean produce and deeply rooted values of equality, openness, trust and compassion are what sets us apart from the rest of the world, and are also a key part of our happiness and well-being.”

Gulliksson is also a chef, typical of Scandinavia’s burgeoning reputation as a culinary powerhouse. Heaving breakfast buffets and lunchtime feasts will be wheeled out by teams from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Finland and Åland, all by the fire in a cosy tent on the festival terrace.

Culinary powerhouse: The feast is the work of creative director Fia Gulliksson

Fire is not just an accompaniment; it’s an active component in the cooking. Help yourself to generous servings of baked Greenland halibut with seaweed shrimp, Nordic falafel, Icelandic lamb and charcoal-grilled reindeer (put any Rudolph associations to one side, it’s delicious).

As befits peoples routinely ranked as the happiest in the world, the eight Nordic destinations will also be sharing the love with lessons in their values. Normal for Norway is “friluftsliv” (pronounced free-loofts-liv), which encourages spending more time outdoors — whatever the weather — to get away from the concrete bunker work environment so many of us are used to and experience nature. The Swedes live and die by “fika”, a pastry-laden coffee break that is more religion than custom; the Faroese have created “ræst”, a method of drying meat and fish outdoors.

Hygge recipes

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These are winter survival tools hewn in the land of the midnight sun. The Finns are world leaders in foraging — you’re allowed to pick almost anything you find in the nation’s forests — and the preservative-packed lingonberry and vitamin C-loaded cloudberry are important fruits on the menu (the former makes a delicious butter). In Iceland, the winter of discontent is made glorious summer by simply firing up the barbecue year-round. Whether in snow or sunshine, they’ve even been known to barbecue their Christmas steaks.

Raise a glass to our Norse cousins, and don’t just endure the winter — embrace it, Scandi-style.

Fri-Sun, tickets start from £19 and can be booked here

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