We were not meant to go to Boen Gaard because we were in the vicinity to cover the launch of Norway's first Underwater restaurant, Under.
The restaurant was architected by Snohetta, in the southerly town of Lindesnes, Norway, and was exceptional, half on the water and half under, thus the name.
When the Under launch was finished, a group of Portuguese food writers decided to go to a place one of them knew, Boen Gaard, which is the focus of this Memoryscapes feature.
They made dinner reservations; the sun was setting, and a full moon was rising.
We went with them, because they were lively, and we assumed they knew where they were going --which turned out to be true.
This involved going down a dirt road, outside of Kristiansand, a city a few miles from Lindesnes, and finally we saw the large white Boen Gaard residence.
We discovered an historic, hunting and fishing estate, built in 1654, that catered to English nobility as well as Danish and Swedish kings and queens, and had a wild salmon river, the Tovdal, on property.
We could hear the river, even from the dining room.
The Boen Gaard estate land was once King Christian II's property until the 1600s.
It was then sold, and eventually was owned by the Hegermann family throughout several generations. British Lords fished for salmon in the early 1900s, just as many do today.
Recently, a fisherman caught a 26-pound salmon in the Tovdal river.
The current main building was erected in 1813, and the furniture and décor reflects that formality of that period.
But, in contrast, on many antique polished oak or gray marble tables were freshly picked flowers – peonies, a white Phalaenopsis orchid, Madagascar jasmine, and rose geranium.
To my touch and my awareness, there were no plastic flowers or ferns anywhere.
Everything is real here
As Dagfinn Galdal, the resident Sommelier and General Manager of Boen Gaard said to us : "Everything is real here."
There was no doubt this was true.
For dinner, we ate fresh scallops tartare with trout roe and chives-emulsion; a cauliflower crudité, frisée salad and dried truffle seaweed; fried and baked white cabbage, pickled pear and apple, fresh spinach, celeriac-cream and ramson oil with apple.
And, on a platter of coffee beans, a homemade flatbread of emmer flour, smoked cod roe and fresh dill. There was also a platter of small beignets filled with chicken liver pate, topped with a red currant coulis.
While others drank wine, I drank the apple cider, then a sparkling juice with a raspberry base. "Made from the early raspberries in our garden," said Dagfinn.
It was unbelievable, and the scent alone, deep, ripe raspberry, more a perfume than a juice, filled the room.
After dinner, we walked outside.the moon was high and bright.
We walked toward an apple orchard with old, twisted tree trunks. We asked Dagfinn how old the orchard was, and he said, he thought the trees were planted in the 1600's.
The apple trees, dappled with moonlight made a powerful impression, and we thought how the past informs and alights the present, if we allow it.
We felt differently when, a few years later, we felt a different sense of the past, in a dense cloud forest in the mountains of Ecuador.
Other Memoryscape features
Other features in Susan Kime's Memorscape series :
- Casas do Coro : https://www.allwaystraveller.com/continents/europe/casas-do-coro-marialva-portugal
- Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador : https://www.allwaystraveller.com/allways-features-home/mashpi-lodge-in-ecuador-s-cloud-forest