AshehougAgency

Dining with Ibsen

When Henrik Ibsen was a young man, he often had to pawn his valuables to obtain money for food. Twenty years later he was dining in the company of the Empress of France at the opening of the Suez Canal - partaking a 24-course dinner! While living abroad, he often wrote home asking for Norwegian haddock or the sharp cheese called "pultost". yet at his 70th birthday celebration he feasted on oysters, soup, salmon, guinea hen, pineapple, ice cream, cakes and a great deal more - not to mention the finest of wines, a different one for each course.

Henry Notaker has unearthed menus from many of the foreign banquets Ibsen attended to show us another facet of the man; Ibsen the gourmet. The celebrity Norwegian cook Arne Brimi has contributed with his versions of the meals found in Ibsen's works: Nora's macaroons, Ds. Stockman's beefsteak, Mother Aase's cakes. There is even room for little Henrik's honeycakes, the nostalgic roast goose and Georg Brande's lamb dinner - to name but a few.

The book is lavishly illustrated.

First published: Aschehoug Non-Fiction

Henry Notaker: Biography and bibliography