The Reinvention of Nordic Terroir and the Making of Gastrotourism Places

This paper focuses on the revalorization of rural areas through Nordic food-related discourses in tourism promotion. The implications of the Nordic food transition go far beyond agricultural production and food retailing. Rural placemaking strategies in the North have undergone a fundamental shift in the past decade and there is a growing interest in Denmark, Sweden and Norway as gastronomic destinations. The invention of the Nordic terroir has reinvigorated rural tourism consumption and hence, transforming rural tourism production as well. Furthermore, international television productions also contributed to the mediatization of Nordic regional gastronomy. But how can we conceptualize contemporary food place promotion strategies the Nordic context, in which terroir was virtually absent before 2004 (the year when the New Nordic Cuisine manifesto was issued)?
To address the question, this paper studies place branding narratives that mobilize local food and contemporary gastronomic trends by revisiting the notion of terroir (taste of place) as a strategic marketing asset. In particular, it explores how rural tourism destinations with little or no gastronomic heritage exploit the discourses of New Nordic Food to create a distinct sense of place. An extensive review of the literature identifies two conservationist strategies by which terroir narratives are constructed (accreditation and patrimonialization), neither of which fully capturing the particular rhetoric approaches shaping the Nordic terroir. Drawing on empirical illustration from Danish rural destinations, the paper argues that terroir is reinvented through manipulative rhetoric approaches and identifies two novel, transformational strategies framing terroir narratives (exotising and entreprising). The paper contributes with a conceptual model conceived through a unique combination of place-specific (typicality) themes and market-specific ideologies, which has the explanatory power to distinguish Nordic terroir narratives from earlier articulations of taste of place.