Hello everybody how's everybody doing how was breakfast lovely coffee yeah I would like
to tell you that for the last five hours mad to the hashtag has been the second most
trending thing on Twitter in the world that's pretty good for us five hundred
people here but I guess that's people out there also wanting to be here so my
name is René Redzappi welcome to Copenhagen welcome to the second
edition of the mad symposium before we start I would like to introduce some of
the team members well the team members that has basically been working on this
to make it happen and you know you're probably well a lot of people ask me how
many people we are doing this and you know there were speculations whether
it was 10 or 15 even said and and you know people walk in the 20s but I can
assure you that these two fellas right here they made this happen on a shoe
string literally walking around town with their hat collection hat and begging
from our friends and colleagues and truly because of our friends and colleagues
and a few big sponsors this is the reason why this is happening so to all
of you sitting there who helped this I really want to thank you so much it
wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for you now here we have Ben he's our
lanky Scotsman Ben has just graduated from the University of
Gastronomical Sciences yeah and he's amazing next here we have Ali from Cyprus
so Ali's story is a bit special because he was actually a regular at the
restaurant he had eaten more than 20 times at restaurant Noma he traveled
the world for the next great mouthful constantly he was a banker a highly
paid banker that is until I made him quit his job move into an apartment full
of smelly chefs and become a lowly paid restaurant worker like the rest of us
give them a hand please
now for those of you who are here last year I want to tell that even though we
loved it and maybe some of you is even missing it we've cancelled the mud bath
for this I don't know there's somebody wants to to bathe or get dirty but
instead we made sure that there is well you may or may not have noticed that
there's plenty of wild goose shit everywhere yeah so when I first saw all
this goose shit I got super nervous three weeks ago really I went back to the
kitchen say hey guys we have to remove all these turds you know I was envisioning
cascades of people slipping and sliding in goose shit you know having to not
pick up mud of their boots but you know goose droppings and because there was so
fucking much of it I actually dug in and did a bit of research on this goose
shit and surprisingly there was some very interesting facts which I'm gonna
read to you now did you know that a wild goose is estimated to produce at least
150 droppings a day that's a lot of times to shit and when these are dried
they each weigh approximately 0.7 to 1 gram each this made me realize it's a
person out there actually doing the job which then made me realize that even
geescientists have starships I also found out that it's an excellent
fertilizer but the most surprising thing was that goose dropping still
contains so much recoverable nutrients that some mammals can meet their dietary
needs by eating nothing but goose shit which made me very happy because it
solved our lunch issues yeah so why are we here you know fertilized by goose
guano in a candy-colored circus tent that also happens to be the national
colors of Sweden we tried to make it differently but we had to suck it in a
journalist cheekingly asked me isn't this just about you chefs meeting up and
talking shit about food critics and I said no that's what we do on all the
other 363 days of the year so so we don't need to that now the truth is that
we hope this symposium can grow into an annual meeting of mindful chefs that are
eager to learn more and understand better this complex profession that we've all
chosen to be a part of we hope that we can be a part of our community of chefs
farmers food scientists fishermen and foragers that are willing to invest so
much energy in making our profession better and above all more delicious to
actively acknowledge what our hands and fingers appreciate instinctively after
years of labor to explore the hunger that is a source of our inspiration we
need appetite to dare for better to think bitter bigger a great quote comes to my
mind by a brilliant man that you will actually see momentarily he writes in
his new book which I read him after our service the whole night I came back to
work the day after I'm unrested and which is not a good thing but it was an
amazing thing and he writes a book about communities and and he says you know I
think the meaning of your book is if you truly want to progress and make yourself
happy with the things you do then work for and with your community or said in
other words the more that we work with each other the more we'll all get better
at the things that we do and want to achieve and this is what we're here for
I started in this profession when I was 15 one of the first jobs I ever did in
a kitchen was picking down 20 bunches of turbo each in small individual leaves
sized out in five different sizes it was really you know I thought holy shit
after six hours of that a year later I was opening 50 lobsters by in a
hour my hands were so open the next year I was carving out whole animals and in
the last year of my apprenticeship I would do stocks make sauces with
banh yul's vinegar clean clean one lobe of foie gras after the other by the way
today is the last day of foie gras in California so I thought there was fitting
to fit in and I can tell you that number number three most trending in the
world is foie gras so I was learning how to cook and now 20 years later I'm here
on the stage talking to you people something that I've never been taught
to do and I can tell you it's really fucking heartbreaking it really really
is but you know once you feel the support from people it makes everything
so much more easier and I would imagine that for many of the other speakers it's
the same thing you know we're not trained in this I started when I was 15 in the
profession I basically am a total illiterate a stupid cook like most of
the ones that are out there in the world so one last thing that I would like to
do before I clear the stage is a few years ago I was at a Jewish wedding and
they had this exercise was brilliant and it was the the toast master he had a
sign and each time he sort of stepped up and made this sign then people just went
frickingly mad you know they clapped they stomped they shouted they screamed
they jumped until he said stop and in one moment they stopped so I would like
us to do that so we warm up so we really warm up our clapping muscles and our
smiling muscles so that with each speaker we're ready to welcome them and
feel make them feel comfortable and as hopefully they leave happy you will also
be happy and then let them leave with a roar so when I count to three can have
everybody just go fucking mental like mental as loud dirty nasty as you can
possibly get until I make the signs like that and then it stops okay are you
ready okay one two three go
