Thank you very much Rene I mean it you know being the best if I look in the mirror I go
very close I see only my face then that is the whole world if I go even closer I see
only the pimple so being the best I don't know what to say about it and it's I want
to be a good farmer actually sometime I have a problem being a good farmer because being
a farmer is trying to control the first the first spade we put in earth to turn the soil
is a try is you know in a way trying to control the nature but it makes no sense because even
if you are trying to radically change the nature we are still the part of nature and
that that is one thing we have to think very carefully about this morning I drove to this
place passing on the motorway in the middle I see a lot of asparagus later it was this
is the sea bucked on at Amar really a lot and almost being here I see I see how horseradish
rampion just before before the DR building the Danish television and and you we can go
and grab it then I thought why why are these asparagus living in the middle of the motorway
the other question is also what is the motorway doing where asparagus is growing I want to
present myself but first of all I'm feeling very humble you can hear my my voice is staggering
a little bit but but I feel comfortable feel very comfortable I feel very proud also humble
and proud I want you to help me feel more comfortable by giving me a big smile thank
you I looked at myself today in the mirror I smiled and what did I see I see no carnivore
cheats she only cheats for smashing something why do we eat so much meat at least decade
meat is what is fit for a tease not not to go and kill an animal and eat it like that
we are no wolf you know nothing like that we are meant to eat plants and insects and
when I was young I lived in Lamefjord 80 kilometers from here I had a friend called Kurt he was
my age and we dug a lot of holes in the ground and the water came up and we could make the
water run to other places and we went around in the landscape our home our universe was
perhaps 50 hectare or something like that not very big but it was our universe and we
found we knew some plant we could eat we didn't know anything if they could harm us or anything
but there was some sour ones there was some bitter ones I know now which plants they are
but everything was very physical it was big fun digging thing in the ground trying to
eat it I never ate soil you can according to a nutty I can I won't because I have the
idea that everything we eat has been alive we're not plants plants can actually consume
themselves by products like nitrogen like minerals but we can't we have to have something
which has been living before we are very weak in in in respect to life we have to get some
other starting life force before we can live ourselves and that's also a good point for
me but playing around with court we also make a lot of joke like any child do we found out
that eggs were very nice to eat and even dog eggs also were very good to eat but they look
beautiful on a big white wall and we didn't know that we did something wrong but we did
and we found out in our back that time it was allowed to to give some punishment maybe
I take some severe damage I don't know but later later my friend court and me was not
playing together I got another friend called Finn and we were 12 years about that age old
and some other guys same age they were more quick to find out about the relations to girls
and like that but Finn and me we made our own route around the local small village in autumn
September October we knew exactly where the good plum tree was and when they were ripe
and we had our own route through the gardens and we never got caught and we came back three
four years the same route and that's how it is about stories they have to be continued
you have to be told again and actually I would love to go that route again and see if the
plum tree if the wine if the grape grape just plastered on the south wall the good apple
trees everything where it was today I think a lot of a lot of it has disappeared but could
be joke to find out later I wanted to see the world I want to see something exotic we
always driven by exotics I traveled a lot in North Africa actually over here in in in
the food market I saw two two young guys from Lebanon and they stand there making good pancakes
filled with the vegetables of course and they used what they in Arab called full and I thought
oh my god it's many years ago actually full or fed or horse bean was my first exotic challenge
I took some beans from Tunisia plant them in my home and they grew very well and after
that there's been a big thing carrying thing to see if they could grow in my garden something
failed something succeeded a lot actually a lot of things succeeds and all of a sudden
I thought this planting things is very funny but I remember my childhood one of the favorite
thing in my childhood was carrots and asparagus and my connection with carrots and asparagus
was as all the other thing very physical we were I think I'm one of the last persons who
would take up carrots in the late in late 70s after that machinery took over and and but
I really miss that feeling your body as part of harvesting something that's really good
and at that time I decided I want to do something like that in my in my future so I as a part
of that I started growing asparagus and I soon found out because that was my first professional
step into producing a vegetable I found out that a lot of other things is growing as well
as the asparagus but I knew that from my childhood I had to weed thing out I had to take I have
to control the balance between nature and let's call it culture but it's still nature
doesn't matter we have to think about it the same and we are not stronger than this nature
with this asparagus there was this I saw before that the Kenopodium plant was mentioned
and and that was my first wild plant the other one which was wild sorrel I didn't know in
my childhood what was but these things came rapidly after after that and this was in the
start of the 90 and I started playing again a little bit I have a deep respect for for
conventional farming I like lines of carrots without any weed you can discuss how you get
rid of the weed but but still I think I think it's beautiful to have a production I respect
really good farmers if they are organic or they are doing things with chemical doesn't
matter they have the same goal they have the idea of producing very good stuff and I have
deep respect for this fundamentalism in producing a vegetable especially I think if we talk
about producing meat I have my thoughts about it it's not not nice always so I started like
my father growing carrots also with machinery was another job and I found out that the better
I became doing this carrots the less was I able to live with it economically actually
in in the mid of the 90s I got a very good production with 10 about 10 hectares of carrots
I couldn't even earn what my father did from half a hectare and everything 10 years before
was done by hand actually will will love and respect every carrot was taken up put in a
box taken care by hands and we got good money for that what has happened now now every carrot
you see in the supermarket hasn't seen any man actually a no man hasn't seen the carrot
because every carrot get taken a picture in the machine and if this carrot has a pimple
out nobody cares the taste of the carrot was that everybody says that carrot has to be
sweet it's a funny thing I have four children and I've been experimenting with my children
I take seven different kind of carrots big bunches take them up to the school even the
school involved and I give them white carrots I give them yellow carrots I give them blue
carrots round carrots everybody thinks which is the best carrot they would all scream the
sweetest no they want the white carrot without any carrotine which is good for the skin and
the health and everything they want the wonder why get it always because it's juicy it's
crispy but it's not sweet that's very I think that's very funny I've been to meeting with
the big chef from the supermarket which told us you have in this place now if you're to
make a sweet carrot because what we sell is a children buying the children is designing
what the parents put in the basket it's not true and it's funny and I've been children
is so inspiring I seen I seen the same school my children's school I went up there have a
big banquet with all my vegetable and we had a little start start up talking about vegetable
and I asked if anybody had something to say about vegetable then all thing came and that's
what we're thinking if you have to say something you have to say something negative my father
don't like any kind of vegetable my father also everybody nobody has a father who likes
vegetable then I think oh what a potential here is something to change and then a guy
he was because it's easy to tell that other don't like I don't I hate vegetable it was
Simon I come back to Simon we had this talk about and I can't stop if I see something
good and I think many of my vegetables are very good I can't stop putting them in my
mouth even if there's sand or anything little bit shit doesn't matter and after after the
session after the session I allowed the children to come up if they want to grab I don't know
what they wanted to use it because nobody likes vegetable but they came and took all
the celery and this girl who started my father hate don't like anything vegetable she took
all the celery and after a while Simon came to me just very excited with a big beetroot
red beetroot like this huge just like he win the lottery and then he said the biggest thing
I ever heard it's my biggest victory son you know what I love red beetroot and and it
was amazing because I think he never met a bit before so I had to tell him that actually
I didn't like to grab them like that I want I have to something that's also a little bit
about how I feel I have to have something solid and I feel a little bit like clumsy hands
with this but I think that's okay I think we take that one first here
please cling together if I do it quickly like this shit and organic matter decay everything
but but decay is part of life and this is this is the second plant that inspires me the most
body know what it is it's leaks some kind of strange onion I always been educated as
a farmer that leak should be 40 centimeter having about one third to half of the leak
being white the rest green I don't know why you have to have the green because I once
had a young farmer helping me and then I just told him to make 500 bundles with five leak
in each bundle and then I came home and he just made 500 bundles with only the white
here cut all all the green said what the hell you spoiled 500 bundles for what oh no but
but when I come when my mother takes a leak home she just cut the green and out with it
you can't use the green from the leak I see many actually I see in many restaurants they
do the same just cut the green out but more and more like Renee the green one also but
it's a shame to produce a vegetable and people are just throwing half of it which should
be very very good but then this story about leak started for me 10 years ago I was getting
divorced like 80% of people in Denmark does and I had a lot of problem of course and
then I forgot to to show the leak in the springtime in August which is normally the time you
are planting or showing a leak but I had this packet of seeds then I thought I had a good
summer so I got a little bit more energy why don't I put it in the soil you can see what
happened then they started germinating and they were very very very very tiny like like
this in October I thought ah they get they get all killed in winter but next year they
developed came like small very nice leaks in in April and actually there was some chefs
in Copenhagen actually they want they want to have this because they think they were
very nice just like spring onions and I thought okay and and there was a lot actually there
was for one hectare leak so I just took some and and then at the end of the period I saw
some some some was going up making a stem making some flowers but there were other they didn't
do anything and then I took them and I found out that they made like this one they made
a small onion and and more of that they put small onion beside so actually I thought what
is this this is a milking milking machine so they started growing up next autumn with
a lot of new small leaks and next year I could grab the leaks and the small onion they fell
off in the soil so this field I have been growing a leak for eight years now just taking
the leak and replanting themselves every year what a gift for a poor farmer and and and
the funny thing the funny thing then I started playing and I had some playmates I had some
played me playmates this one actually is the age age generation of leak you see the small
the small things here it's a what's it called the field salad field salad feels much much
much because with the leaks in case it failed with the leak I planted some much then I had
at least that in the summer but that has been coming eight years as well so now they live
together there but but now this year I stopped the joke with that one I'm making a new field
of course because it's a funny thing and and I think actually it's so beautiful and and
so you're saying that this here has been eight years in the making yeah it's a a very good
thing with leaks a very strong thing is that it has vegetative production and it has sexual
behavior also and and the sexual thing comes from from these flowers as male and female
flowers and and they make sex together it's funny for the bees and this looks like sex
also but it isn't so when actually I caught its sexual behavior because that's some filthy
thing then you start developing on the vegetable process and that's funny that's yeah you treat
somebody bad then they give you back and and there's so many there's so many different
shape of leaks and this is where people like Renee comes in because this one if I take let's
take this one is look like shit we like shit after this event we will all really love shit
I have to take my glasses off you see you see here if we look thoroughly through the
shit what do we see here small bulbs yeah small almost like onion rings of rice almost
onion like creatures and if we grab we grab this one you clean a little bit and put it
on a plate that's a masterpiece I think 10 of Renee couldn't do that even if they worked
for a month with the molecular kitchen well without people like you wouldn't even have
it no but it's not me yet I just I just saw it first so this is like almost like and the
color the color everything even try to eat it we eat shit it was you told that once yeah
all of all that about leak I need somebody to clean up me sometimes we got people another
thing which this is this is my favorite this is asparagus end of season the last shoots
from asparagus I have I have something dogmatic about my life I had I have to eat the first
asparagus in my field and I have to eat the last in the season and today the season stopped
you can eat it with me I don't know we can I can talk a lot about asparagus but I will
only say a couple of things two things maybe yeah it's one of the most physically because
I love physical work and I know you do also actually Renee wouldn't do what he's doing
if he wasn't physical somebody might think that that he's a good performer on stage
only but but it's hard work I have so deep respect because these people in this place
no more I came there last year I'm busy also I came I came there in the night just half
hour after midnight people working there I came back in the morning because it was very
urgent with some other stuff I came 630 the same people working there that was amazing
for me I thought they sleep until 12 o'clock maybe but they don't and it's hard work to
gain whatever you want in your life and I like I like and respect other people who I like
to help play playmates who do the same thing like that who who are really convinced that
doing an effort is how you reach the goal but this this asparagus I had to find out
about this asparagus because what how did it started so I tried read a lot of about
asparagus and actually I found out if anybody knows better they have to correct me but the
first use of asparagus actually was a root in China and it was used as a medical herb
and they used the roots as a condiment for for kidney disease and stuff like that and
I tried to eat these these roots that's still a challenge for the cooks nobody found out
how to get the string in the middle of the root out but you can make an excellent soup
actually you can make the best asparagus soup from the root of asparagus and it's it's
because it's it's so concentrated that this as asparagus acid and all the other stuff
so concentrated in the roots so also about about this I make a lot of occasion where
people come and talk about asparagus I tell about asparagus and and I got a beer company
so giving good for your kidney then it was just the next step to make a beer from the
root from asparagus and actually you can find it in the tent with the beer and the bread
and stuff over there and I think it's it's been very funny to work with the better stuff
in asparagus root and making a beer and it really makes a trigger for you because it's
not easy this year it was a success brewing this beer so we're digging up the roots actually
we're using a big caterpillar because if you know how asparagus root go two meter two and
a half meter down in the soil then you have to have a caterpillar even if I like physical
work it's too much but we took normally we take it in in March and this year the beer
brew was excellent from asparagus root and then we have to remake because everything
was sold out already in the middle of of May and we came to dig some more out but at that
time asparagus was growing and the brew became totally different from the other one and that
was really a big fun so and that's that's again we try we can do it after a receipt
but we can't we have to we have to follow nature often sometimes also if you make some
really good stuff I am I'm gonna cut in yeah cut in and I would just like to tell especially
for all the chefs the next time you pick up the phone and call your probe your purveyor
imagine what you can get out if you go straight to the source what haven't we learned here
in now 40 minutes of lecturing from this person but thank you to sir
I want to say in relation to this because I plan to talk about playmates and
having playmates like Renee and a lot of other cooks gives me great great pleasure and they
make me good by speaking good to me they make me good because they respect I'm a farmer
like they respect other farmers I think that's how we get good products because if anybody
tell me that I'm doing something good and they clap my shoulders why shouldn't I make
it even better next time instead of just bothering me with two big prices and and it's not fit
for food so thank you Renee also oh thank you man it's a fun to be part of this game
