A visit to Stockholm
Last week, Diane and I were in Stockholm for the annual meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy for Agriculture and Forestry — abbreviated KSLA, for Kungl. Skogs- och Lantbruksakademiens. We were there because of a call on December 11th informing me that I had been selected for their Borgstrom Prize in Global Food Security — one of several awards to be conferred at their prize ceremony on January 28th. Researchers previously recognized with the Borgstrom award are mostly Swedish luminaries (including the great Hans Rosling and Johan Rockstrom) with only one previous American winner (Lester Brown).
On arrival at the airport there’s a photo gallery of local heroes, including Rosling. He created Gapminder, the precursor to Our World in Data, and is a longtime hero for me too — and later Diane and I went to Fotografiska where an exhibit included another great portrait of Rosling to help me see the world in new ways.
The KSLA’s expert staff had told us about the dress code, timing and location for the event. I knew this was the Royal Academy’s 214th annual meeting, held in the Stockholm’s majestic city hall with the awards conferred by the King of Sweden himself. We dressed for the occasion:
and found our seats in the cavernous Blue Room, which is famously not blue because the handmade bricks were deemed too beautiful to paint:
When it was my turn, I bowed correctly to His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf, embodying over 200 years of support for science at the highest levels of the Swedish state:
The prize ceremony included several speeches and musical interludes, for about two hours of grandeur — after which we climbed those steps to what turned out to be a three hour banquet in the even more magnificent Gold Room upstairs. Between each course we heard more speeches, including a loving description of each dish, the origins of its ingredients and accompanying wine provided by the evening’s gastronomic director and sommelier:
The entire event was an astonishing celebration of Sweden’s traditions, including especially their big investments in science and innovation for agriculture, forestry and the food industry.
If you want more pictures of the event, including each dish served at dinner, you can flip through this album. You can also see links to some of the other people involved on LinkedIn. For this post I’ll leave you with a taste of how Swedish food manufacturers combine global trends with local flavor: their famous salted licorice, now available as a protein bar.
