From Innovation to Impact: Translating New Nordic Cuisine into a Nordic Food Model

This chapter examines the translation of New Nordic Cuisine (NNC) from a culinary innovation into a Nordic food model with wider impact. We highlight three distinctive translation approaches: localizing, transposing, and theorizing for universal application. These approaches, championed by different translators, such as chefs, food researchers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and policymakers, contribute to the elaboration of different aspects of a Nordic food model with diverse applications, from food culture to culinary renewal and international development to food policy. The chapter outlines and illustrates these translation approaches, as well as connections between them, NNC, and the overall Nordic model. The chapter adds to the literature on translation by suggesting how an ecology of translation, consisting of the energy and creativity of key translators, the power of key objectified ideas, such as the Nordic food manifesto and Nordic food movement, and a supportive media, have enabled a culinary innovation to expand to a Nordic food model.