this is soren s farm, but we always say our farm. we feel like it s our place. soren is rene s primary supplier of farm beef and vegetables. look at the soil here. you see all the mussel shells? yeah. these are shellfish. this used to be marshland. like rene, he s not your ordinary dane and his farm is unlike the others around here. this used to be monoculture. yep. 15 hectares of just carrots. just carrots. now what are i don t growing? between 120 and 170 different things. true, there are tractors and rows where potatoes and carrots grow. but much of what s happening here is a mix of wild and cultivated. this is wild angelica. that s chives and the purple flowers, wild onions. and you can grow them here. let s grow some for next year. here you go. first time you come up here, you go into this, like oh, flower garden. and he will say no, no, no, this
mediterranean. summers are short. but rene and crew started what they re famous for is foraging for ingredients. reindeer moss for last year s mushroom. and color me dubious. that is incredible. wow. there is no way this is going to look convincingly delicious on tv, but it is really delicious. i met rene 2004. basically, the restaurant was just opened. ten years after noma s inception, rene is arguably the most famous dane since hamlet. so it s happily ever after, right?
is the leek field. they re so nice. touching them like they re jewels. they are jewels. let s grab a bunch of these for lunch, no? leeks going? yeah. the pressure in farming is to have a monoculture and to provide year in and year out what you know is going to sell and what the market demands. do you mind grabbing a few of these plants? they re going to grow up, so don t take the root. it s very, very hard for a small guy to say i m not going to grow carrots anymore, i m going to grow a whole bunch of interesting things, and i m going to grow them as well as i possibly can. this is pretty much a first for me. this is the first time you fall to your knees for a green plant? yeah. how long for leeks? two leek up. do you think we ll ever reach a point where guys like soren will be in a very good place? i think if we cut the middle men, the producers, the farmer, to talk directly with a guy like rene. nobody ever teaches you it s the symbosis with these people
how you doing? hello. cheers. i m learning, danes may be stiff, but they sure as hell know how to drink. nils is a danish renaissance man. drinker, sailor, charter tour boat operator, musician. so you re a neighbor of rene? i have known him from the absolute beginning. when noma can we start now? yeah, we re going. we re going. what did you think of him when you first met him? i saw an ordinary man. he fight for what he think about. he had a vision. yeah, a vision. and fight for this. all right. very close for two bitters. yes, chef. nicely done, chef. there we are. look at the beautiful girl there. cheers.