Smalhans is chef: An interview with Hans-Peter Lindstrøm (pt. 4)

Welcome to the fourth installment of “Smalhans is chef”, our interview series with Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm. Today it’s all about the Smalhans album track “Ęg-gęd-ōsis” and the simple dessert that goes by the same name—but we recommend that you begin with the previous three episodes of the series as a starter, just in case this is your first visit.

Eggedosis is a pretty simple and fast recipe, I’d say… it’s just egg and sugar stirred together. Do you recall your oldest memory of Eggedosis or Gogl-Mogl?

My mother used to make this for us as a dessert. She didn’t really give us much chocolate or other sweets, and she prepared everything pretty much from scratch, without prefab ingredients. So we usually got eggedosis as kids because it was fast, simple and sweet. I guess I wouldn’t like it much today.

What about your own kids?

They do like it! Often enough, eggedosis is the basis of the dough when we make a cake. They always taste everything I make before I’m finished, but as long as there’s sugar in there they usually like it.

Eggedosis is an old Russian and Yiddish dish, and the etymology of its name can be traced back to the bible and Talmud, translating to “the land of milk and honey”. This made me think of quite the opposite, namely the “milk lakes” and “butter mountains”; words that refer to the overproduction of agricultural goods in the European Union during the 1970s. How does the Norwegian population deal with food?

As far as I know there’s too much food being thrown away, just like everywhere in the world. I myself try to keep the leftovers low, or use as much as possible the next day—some food is even better a day later. But the general problem is huge, of course. The best thing to do about it is to eat up! My food is usually so good that we finish everything.

“Smalhans is chef” continues: the fifth episode of our kitchen-centric interview series with Lindstrøm will follow on Thursday.

Published November 13, 2012.