Great minds mingle with royals at mother of all banquets ( 2003-12-09 11:43) (Agencies)
Pork and deer are ruled out. Champagne will be served with the starter.
Other details about the menu for the annual Nobel banquet will remain
shrouded in secrecy until 1,370 guests in ball gowns, split-tail tuxedos and
national costumes arrive just before 7 p.m. (1800 GMT) Wednesday at Stockholm's
City Hall.
Arguably the most famous meal in the world, the banquet is a tradition dating
back to the first Nobel Prizes in 1901. The lavish dinner is an indulgence in
pomp, etiquette and haute cuisine, broadcast live on Swedish television after
the medicine, chemistry, physics, economics and literature prizes are presented
at a concert hall a few blocks away. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo.
It's also a rare opportunity for scientists more at ease in laboratories or
classrooms to clink Swedish crystal with royalty, Cabinet ministers, ambassadors
and central bank governors.
Thirty-two cooks, 225 waiters, eight maitre d's, 20 dishwashers, five storage
workers and 20 coat-check clerks have trained for months to make it a memorable
evening _ but not for the wrong reasons.
``The worst thing that could happen is a power outage,'' banquet coordinator
Marie Oestlund told The Associated Press. ``The sound and lights going out, the
stoves shutting down and the elevators stopping. Sure, it's something I think
about occasionally at night.''
It's never happened on the night of the banquet, but a few years ago power
failed on the day before, causing a near-disaster, Oestlund said. Seven hundred
portions of chicken being preheated had to be thrown out when the ovens died.
The staff scrambled to replace them just in time to start the whole thing over.
``We just barely made it,'' Oestlund recalled.
In another incident last year, a medical team was called off at the last
second when it was determined the Japanese laureate who slumped in his chair was
only snoozing, she said.
More common woes include waiters dropping plates or spilling wine on a silk
gown. Although waiters are carefully selected among hundreds of applicants,
Oestlund said there's always someone who panics when it's time to carry a dish
down the marble staircase leading to the pillared banquet room, the Blue Hall.
``To fall on the stairs during the dessert parade, that would be awful,''
said Therese Larsson, 18, one of 10 students joining the banquet staff as part
of their restaurant school education. She waved her hands over her stomach to
illustrate the butterflies she feels every time a promotion for the banquet show
airs on TV.
By tradition, the menu for the three-course meal is one of the best kept
secrets in this Scandinavian nation of 9 million people. It was decided in
October, when members of the Nobel Foundation picked one of three suggestions by
chefs Magnus Lindstroem, Henrik Haakansson and Gunnar Eriksson.
Eriksson, who's in charge of the banquet kitchen for the first time this
year, said he only revealed the menu to his staff last week, with strict
instructions to keep it to themselves.
``They know they had better shut up,'' he said, with a crooked smile.
Two kinds of meat are ruled out: Pork for religious reasons and deer because
that's what King Carl XVI Gustaf, an avid hunter, traditionally offers Nobel
laureates at a private dinner Dec. 11.
Champagne is always served with the appetizer and the dinner is usually
rounded off with cognac or Cointreau and coffee with chocolate medallions.
After some prodding, Eriksson said the starter will reflect the ``new
Sweden,'' blending traditional Scandinavian food with international influences.
The main course will feature ``autumnal flavors'' _ restaurant language for
mushrooms _ and the dessert will engage both the sweet and sour taste buds.
The delicacies are served on a colorful dinner set introduced for the 90th
anniversary of the Nobel Prizes in 1991. The crystal, including four glasses for
champagne, red wine, dessert wine and water, was supplied by Orrefors, the
silverware by Gense, and the linen cloths and napkins by Klaessbols _ all
purveyors to Sweden's Royal Court. The porcelain plates were provided by
Roerstrand.
``Everyone has exactly the same set. The only difference is that the table of
honor also has a cover plate with the Nobel emblem,'' Oestlund said.
In another Nobel tradition, the Blue Hall, which is more red than blue after
architect Ragnar Oestberg scrapped plans to cover the brick walls with blue
plaster, will be bathed in flowers from the Italian city of San Remo. The Nobel
Foundation declared that this year, the flowers will ``encounter a certain
resistance from moss, white lichens, bilberry sprigs, juniper twigs and
evergreen cones that will bring the Nordic forest with them into the Blue
Hall.''
The full banquet experience, from the laureates' speeches to the dessert
parade, which last year featured the surprise release of hundreds of balloons,
can only be enjoyed in person.
But for those who don't expect an invitation from the Nobel Foundation
anytime soon, the meal itself can be enjoyed nightly at the City Hall's cellar
restaurant.
For 1,430 kronor (US$194), and a week's notice, they'll replicate any Nobel
dinner since 1901.
