FYIDC | THEDISH
COOKING FOR KINGS, QUEENS
AND PRIME MINISTERS
A conversation with Swedish Embassy chef Frida Johansson
BY GAIL SCOTT
T
his job is a world on
a plate,” says Fr ida
Johansson, the Swedish
Embassy’s executive chef, during
a private cooking demonstration
for Washington Life at Ambassador
Björn Lyrvall’s residence. “I cook
for a broad crowd.”
Johansson is one of very few
women who prepare food for
kings, queens and prime ministers.
“I’ve cooked four or five times
for Her Majesty Queen Silvia,
who was here last month for the
Mentor Foundation Gala. I used
to get nervous when I cooked
for royalty but don’t anymore,”
Johansson says. “I get excited
instead.”
Swedish food, she notes, is
fresh, seasonal and healthy. “We
eat a lot of fish, seafood and
berries. I import fresh frozen
lingonberries all year ’round,
cloudberries and sea buckthorns,
which are very rare, very sour, full
of vitamin C, and found only in
Swedish Embassy Chef
Nordic countries. I don’t import
Frida Johansson (Photo by Jay Snap)
much but I do import berries.”
Johannson, who likes to “bring new ways of cooking to the
old traditional Swedish way,” explains how she experiments. “I
can get very funky, artsy, crazy … every dish is what you see
and smell, not just what you taste. I like a surprise in my food,
maybe something that will pop in your mouth. I do molecular
cooking but it’s hard when we have so many big parties.”
She does like to sample what other people cook and eats out all
the time. “I like really good American food like burgers and mac and
cheese – but creamier and lighter with truffles or bacon. I try new
foods once, twice and maybe three times. If I don’t like them then, I
give up,” she admits. On her no-no list: intestines and brains.
For a recent party at House of Sweden for 500 people to
celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Swedish
actress Ingrid Bergman, Johannson served wild boar, venison and
18
lobster hors d’oeurves along with
a glorious dessert buffet.
She has to keep within
budget, which requires making
choices to ensure overall quality
and good, fresh ingredients.
“I would rather spend
money on berr ies and save
by not order ing foie gras,”
she says, mentioning that she
orders fish from Congressional
Seafood and meat from Wagshal’s.
“Pam the butcher there is the
best in town,” Johannson says.
“She’s legendary.”
One of her major challenges
is working alone without other
colleagues in the kitchen. She
does, however, have a “network
of embassy chefs, especially from
Nordic embassies, and we call on
each other for big events.”
Johansson has been the
Swedish Embassy’s chef for five
years. Previously she worked at
a half dozen Swedish
restaurants as well as
restaurants in Italy
and Belg ium. She
started cooking at
home when she was
14. “I grew up on
Johansson’s desserts often feature
homemade food,” she
fresh berries. (Phot o by Jay Snap)
says.
Her big opportunity
came when as a high school student she won the Leonardo Da Vinci
scholarship for one month of study at a Belgian restaurant school
followed by four months in the kitchens of two of Antwerp’s best
restaurants. “I had the time of my life. I had seven Michelin-stared
chefs around me and a French chef who always said that everything
was bad. On the day I left, he took me aside and said, ‘You are the
best student I have ever had.’”
“Being a chef is a lifestyle, not just a job. Food brings us together.”
WA S H I N G T O N L I F E
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