What Does Memory Taste Like?

Newly reprinted!

This is the original cookbook from the remarkable Danish chef Bo Bech. In it he chronicles the creation of his first restaurant, Paustian, on the industrial fringe of Copenhagen, and the obsessive pursuit of knowledge, expertise, and rule-breaking that characterized it.

By the time the book was published, Paustian was closed, and as the title suggests, this is a recollection of the energy that earned the restaurant a Michelin star. There are tributes from kitchen and front of house staff, as well as from Bech’s peers, including Rasmus Kofoed and Rene Redzepi. 

A comment by food critic Lærke Kløvedal captures some of the tension between Bech’s intentions and his customers’: 

I myself have left Bo Bech’s restaurant in anger several times. The times when I was not ready for perdition, or the times when I felt the kitchen took me for a ride, fooled me. I am convinced that I was manipulated into liking dishes that actually displeased my palate. But I also know that no where on Earth could I dine so beautifully and so agonizingly as with Bo Bech.

The food itself is represented in elementally simple photographs, which are wholly appropriate for dishes as self-evident as wafers of avocado with lightly salted caviar and almond oil. Most such dishes are not accompanied by recipes, though a few are. The point is not so much to recreate as to evoke.

A highly unusual book, and one we are delighted to once again offer.

Hardcover; full cloth binding. Color photographs throughout.