MATC culinary students find ‘unity’ with Danish flavors

They included white potatoes cooked in a mixture of caramelized sugar and heavy cream, and a pork loin roasted until the skin got so hard and crispy that “you could almost knock on it,” she said. But once Grassman and other MATC students tasted the dishes, their doubts evaporated.

Those traditional Danish foods and much more will be prepared and served Thursday night by students at an elaborate, $100-a-plate dinner at MATC, also known as Madison College. The sold-out event is designed to raise funds for a proposed student exchange program between the Madison community college and the culinary program at Zeland Business College in Denmark, a similar-size school with multiple sites just outside of Copenhagen.

Dennis Rix, a member of the Zeland Business College culinary faculty, arrived in Madison this week on his third visit to Madison College, and on Tuesday was supervising the work of Madison students prepping dishes in their large classroom kitchen. That included appetizers such as beet-and-horseradish lake trout gravlax, and a main course of coriander-cured beef tenderloin with horseradish cream and a cranberry gel.

The dishes were inspired by traditional Nordic holiday fare Danish families eat on Christmas Eve, Rix said. Teaching these techniques to Madison students is a way to lay the groundwork for a future cultural exchange, he said.

MATC and ZBC are a good fit because they have culinary faculty of a similar size, and both emphasize working with foods that are fresh, locally sourced and sustainable, Rix said.

Thursday’s dinner will use Madison-area products and “is kind of a Denmark/Scandinavia-meets-Wisconsin event, because we’re trying to utilize as much local, seasonal produce as we can,” including Wisconsin cheeses, said Kevin McGuinnis, the culinary arts program director at MATC, who also worked with students in the kitchen Tuesday.

Meanwhile, down the hall, students in MATC’s Baking and Decorative Arts Program were working on breads and desserts, including a traditional Danish apple cake and “ris a la mande,” a Danish rice pudding tradition served around Christmastime.

Thursday’s meal will be served in Diane’s Delicious Diner, a student-run restaurant environment at the Truax campus that is part of the MATC culinary arts program. McGuinnis said that even though reservations to the Danish dinner quickly sold out, donations to the student exchange program are still greatly appreciated. A donation link is at facebook.com/Madisonculinaryarts/.

Rix said that after the fundraiser, his college and MATC will work out the finer details of a study abroad program, which might start out with just a few students and grow from there. The Zeland Business College follows a “dual system,” where students alternate time in the classroom with internships in business settings. Still, the Danish students would learn a lot not only from an academic exchange but just from the cultural experience of coming to the United States, he said.

With American cuisine, “Here it’s more like a melting pot of a lot of cultures,” he said. “Anything goes. The variety is bigger.” In Danish cooking, “less is more. Keep the flavors more simple — so it’s more purified at the end of the dish.”

For full-time MATC student Grassman, who also works full time as a sous chef at a senior living center and is the mother of a 2-year-old, working on the Danish menu has been a lesson in trying new combinations.

“Honestly, it taught me to have an open mind when it comes to sugar and sour in savory dishes,” she said. “When we first read the recipes, we all said, ‘What do you mean, “sweet” potatoes? What do you mean, orange juice cabbage?’ Then you bring the whole dish together, and that unity — it just tasted so good.”