Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Arling Caaga is one of the world's great explorers, a
Speaker 2: man whose life embraces solitude. He is the first person
Speaker 2: to reach by foot the North Pole, South Pole, and
Speaker 2: Mount Everest. His new book, The North Pole, The History
Speaker 2: of an Obsession, is published this week, a compelling read,
Speaker 2: taking us into his world of adventure, hidden dreams, adversity
Speaker 2: and silence. Arling in My life might be dissimilar, but
Speaker 2: we share a love for the unknown. For him, it
Speaker 2: might be a new horizon for me, a discovery of
Speaker 2: a little known Sicilian recipe. To day, we're here on
Speaker 2: our own adventure, not on the top of a mountain
Speaker 2: or in the icy North Pole, but safe and warm
Speaker 2: in the river.
Speaker 3: Cafe ha so Everest, South Pole, The North Pole.
Speaker 2: Can you remember the times when you actually thought you
Speaker 2: might die?
Speaker 4: I never felt I might die, But if my mother
Speaker 4: had seen me, she would certainly believe I was close
Speaker 4: to dying quite a few times when you fall into
Speaker 4: the water. But also, like we were attacked by a
Speaker 4: polar bear.
Speaker 3: Stop there, tell us. Many people start a sence like that,
Speaker 3: what happened? Story?
Speaker 4: We were close to the north pole. Suddenly heard my
Speaker 4: partner but shouted hoy, which I never heard him showed before.
Speaker 4: So I looked up and then saw polar bear at
Speaker 4: twenty meters distance. How big was the bear probably if
Speaker 4: you got after maybe two hundred and fifty kilos and
Speaker 4: this far north, as we said as a joke afterwards,
Speaker 4: is nothing to eat but polar explorers. So we knew
Speaker 4: we knew it was going to charge. But when the
Speaker 4: polar bears saw that we had seen seen it, it
Speaker 4: stopped and we were able to dig into over sledges
Speaker 4: and get a handgun each among forty four each. So
Speaker 4: I got the gun and it was this short barrel
Speaker 4: because we want to say, wait, so only two inches barrel,
Speaker 4: so you can't hit the bear at twenty meters distance.
Speaker 4: You had to wait until this close. But then my
Speaker 4: partner berg, Yeah, he had this idea that he really
Speaker 4: wanted to be published in National Geographic Magazine, which was
Speaker 4: the biggest thing at the time. This was over Bible.
Speaker 4: We kind of read like every Thursday.
Speaker 2: I was an American who received it. Do you get
Speaker 2: it every month?
Speaker 4: Actually get that yellow exactly every third is or something
Speaker 4: that had something on an expedition, which we always read
Speaker 4: like it was like the New Testament. So he got
Speaker 4: this idea, this is my chance. So he dropped the gun,
Speaker 4: got the camera. He didn't have a film camera. This
Speaker 4: was the time he had a film camera. And then
Speaker 4: he got me posing between him and the bear. So
Speaker 4: it took some photos and soon after the bear turned
Speaker 4: towards us start to dig its four feet into the snow,
Speaker 4: lowered its neck, so you knew of those gone to
Speaker 4: charge and it can run up to sixty kilimelan over,
Speaker 4: so it's so it's and it's twenty meters, so it's
Speaker 4: it's let's say it was forty k over, so it's
Speaker 4: really close up. Were both hired and hit it in
Speaker 4: the chest, so it's and it's like, you know, neither
Speaker 4: of us are you know, any desire to kill an animal,
Speaker 4: and definitely not a polar bear. But when it's a
Speaker 4: matter about who's having who for dinner, the choice for
Speaker 4: simple even Gandey said you should kill an animal, want
Speaker 4: to kill you.
Speaker 2: We're here with Sean Renowan, who is director of The
Speaker 2: River Cafe, the executive chef of the River Cafe, a
Speaker 2: great friend of mine and has also wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to you when I told you you were coming about food.
Speaker 2: What we do as chefs, what you do is and
Speaker 2: explore what is the food? If I was coming Sean
Speaker 2: and I were coming to Norway and you were cooking
Speaker 2: something to represent your kind of history in your life,
Speaker 2: what would you give us?
Speaker 4: I would in terms of meat, I would give you
Speaker 4: sever reindeer, a low reindeer. And what reasonal low reindeer
Speaker 4: is because reindeer lives a happy life from born until
Speaker 4: its suddenly is dead, which I find very comfortable that
Speaker 4: that the animal hasn't suffered because of meat. So and
Speaker 4: also it's super tasty.
Speaker 3: Is it like venison? Is it sweet?
Speaker 4: No, it's it's I think it's richer in taste, of
Speaker 4: course depends on what part of the of the reindeer,
Speaker 4: and it's tasted a little bit wilderness. It tastes like,
Speaker 4: you know, a little bit like being above the tree line,
Speaker 4: you know, well cooked or you know, it's it's really
Speaker 4: outstanding meal. And of course in Norway we have so
Speaker 4: much seafood. Now it's cold season and I had some
Speaker 4: cold a few days ago and it's just believe amazing.
Speaker 4: And it's if you have a good piece which I
Speaker 4: will get is almost ful proof.
Speaker 3: How do you cook it?
Speaker 4: The most important thing with cod is that which people
Speaker 4: kind of forget or do not do not know, is
Speaker 4: that you need to first of all, of course, get
Speaker 4: a great piece, but then you need to salt it
Speaker 4: heavily and leave it for at least twenty minutes, and
Speaker 4: then rinse it with cold water because that makes the
Speaker 4: fabric of the meat you call the meat and fabric
Speaker 4: or the much more like almost like lobster meat, so
Speaker 4: it doesn't fall apart in a way, like you know,
Speaker 4: and also the tastes get a little bit richer. And
Speaker 4: then afterwards you salt it and pepper it, and I
Speaker 4: usually then put it in the oven on maybe two
Speaker 4: and twenty degrees for twenty five minutes, maybe a plus
Speaker 4: minus depending on the size of the piece, with some herbs,
Speaker 4: and maybe I make some mash the root vegetables, but
Speaker 4: definitely have a great salad and some good wine.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go.
Speaker 4: I love having people visiting and make food, because that's
Speaker 4: one of the great pressures you can have is to
Speaker 4: share great food that you're really pretty heart into and
Speaker 4: some good wines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was it like? Growing up in Oslo. Will
Speaker 2: you talk to your family what was food like in
Speaker 2: your house?
Speaker 4: You know, I grew up in Olslow in the born
Speaker 4: in sixty three and in the typical middle class family,
Speaker 4: and middle class family at that time in Norway was
Speaker 4: very different from middle class families today because post oil
Speaker 4: fortune and mid class in Norways is different. So we
Speaker 4: had like typical was you start the week Mondays Tuesdays
Speaker 4: with something called fish balls like and then whale steaks whale.
Speaker 3: Really, let's take this slowly, fish.
Speaker 4: Like you made this kind of instead of meat balls
Speaker 4: like fish balls like very popular Norway. Kind of simple,
Speaker 4: not super healthy. I'm totally okay food. And at that
Speaker 4: time fish is quite often cold, and whale was very
Speaker 4: popular Norway.
Speaker 3: In the six.
Speaker 4: You know, if you have the best part of the whale,
Speaker 4: it's delicious, but whale is huge, and of course we
Speaker 4: had we didn't have the best part. And then it's
Speaker 4: quite rough, raw, rough taste a little bit like seal.
Speaker 4: But that maybe doesn't say it's so much either.
Speaker 3: I've never been to the fish well steal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's rough, but that's you know, it's a common
Speaker 4: course in Norway at the time. And then and the
Speaker 4: rest of the week. You know, it's the quality increased.
Speaker 4: And then typically on Saturdays we had stimps or a
Speaker 4: good piece of meat, and the same on Sundays and
Speaker 4: always pudding.
Speaker 3: What would you have pudding?
Speaker 4: You know, this kind of chocolate thing or like the
Speaker 4: strawberry thing, kind of quite simple but still cutting.
Speaker 3: Everything that's important to your family.
Speaker 4: Yes, and it became more and more important. My father
Speaker 4: was a jazz critic, and not to have something extra
Speaker 4: to do, he became a restaurant critic, so he took
Speaker 4: me to the restaurant quite often when he meta critics.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it became more and more important.
Speaker 3: And did you play a lot of jazz.
Speaker 4: Just all the time. My father said that pop music,
Speaker 4: TV and cars are diseases in society and we should
Speaker 4: only listen to jazz, blues and gospel music because it
Speaker 4: was a just critic. We've got to we've got to
Speaker 4: meet all this, you know, just musicians. He left his jail.
Speaker 4: They all came to Norway, like you know, because in
Speaker 4: Norway's they were superstars, you know. They came to our
Speaker 4: house and every alcohol was very expensive and away at
Speaker 4: the time, so we my father's sailed over sailed boat
Speaker 4: to Germany every summer, and we bought dicker and took
Speaker 4: it back home to Norway, and then we had a
Speaker 4: big parties in the house. People got drunk and they
Speaker 4: were playing and jamming into the night. I don't unfortunately.
Speaker 3: And what about school? Tell me about going to school
Speaker 3: every day?
Speaker 4: School was not good to me.
Speaker 2: You were dyslexic. Yeah, my husband is dyslexic, exactly, but
Speaker 2: in those days they didn't actually well in his days
Speaker 2: he was older than you.
Speaker 3: They just called it being stupid exactly.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, it's the good thing having those
Speaker 4: disadvantages is that you learn all of the teacher tries
Speaker 4: to help you. You learn not to trust authorities. I
Speaker 4: had to find my own way to learn the same
Speaker 4: as everyone else in class, so the teacher really couldn't
Speaker 4: help me. And also you learn that life is brutal
Speaker 4: at the early age. And I think you know, the
Speaker 4: sooner you learn it, the better it this in your life.
Speaker 3: You have children.
Speaker 4: I have three daughters.
Speaker 3: You want them to know that life is brutal.
Speaker 4: Actually, actually I want them to know life is brutal.
Speaker 4: And they know life is brutal, but of course they
Speaker 4: have to learn it their own way.
Speaker 3: When did you first become in love with a pole?
Speaker 4: With the first time I became aware of the North Pole,
Speaker 4: I was seven years old. My parents gave me this globe,
Speaker 4: this globeust for my birthday present, and this was in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy. So at that time, the globes were small,
Speaker 4: a bit bluish, dark blue where the oceans were deep,
Speaker 4: it was dark brown where the mountains were high. And
Speaker 4: at the top of the globe it was a little
Speaker 4: flat metal plate to kind of hold the globe together.
Speaker 4: And then I was wondering what's below that metal and
Speaker 4: of course that was a North Pole. And then, as
Speaker 4: you know, then I was wondering about it, and then
Speaker 4: slowly through my life I got more and more interested
Speaker 4: and eventually obsessed about walking to the North Pole. So
Speaker 4: I was in love with the North Pole for many years.
Speaker 4: And of course, as soon as I got to the pole,
Speaker 4: I understood my real obsession had been about walking towards
Speaker 4: the poll and not getting to the pole. The arrival
Speaker 4: is like you know, it's the hunt is always more
Speaker 4: fascinating than actually the killing.
Speaker 3: Tell us the early days of walking.
Speaker 4: I remember the first time I understood that I could
Speaker 4: walk in any direction I wanted. I walked home from
Speaker 4: kindergarten norway safe you walked back and forth to the
Speaker 4: kindergarten by yourself, And I was walking towards over home.
Speaker 4: Then suddenly understood I could just turn ninety degrees and
Speaker 4: walk straight into the forest. That was a beautiful feeling.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 4: And then I was dreaming, and I was dreaming about
Speaker 4: sailing the oceans, which I eventually did through my twenties.
Speaker 4: And then this idea about, like you know, really fulfilling
Speaker 4: my dream about walking to the North Pole kept on
Speaker 4: popping up in my head, and eventually, in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: Berga Aslan and myself we did it, and they prepared for.
Speaker 3: More than ski.
Speaker 4: He was a guy I had never met before. He
Speaker 4: had the same dream, obsessed by getting to the North Pole,
Speaker 4: and obsessed by getting to the North Pole in the
Speaker 4: most difficult way, not using ski doos or dogs or
Speaker 4: air supply, but just walking, dragging over sledges all the
Speaker 4: way to the North Pole. The first thurday nights we
Speaker 4: shared sleeping bag. And then eventually, like you know, off
Speaker 4: doing such an expedition, he either become friends or the opposite. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: we became very close friends.
Speaker 3: You had a great question. Oh no, I was.
Speaker 5: We were just asking how you know when you get
Speaker 5: to the North Pole, is it like a sign.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Because when you get to the pole, the ice,
Speaker 4: you're standing in the ice. The ice is moving all
Speaker 4: the time, so after a few hours you're a little
Speaker 4: bit off the North Pole, depending on the drift. But
Speaker 4: the thing at the North Pole which is interesting is
Speaker 4: that the sun has the same angle above the horizon
Speaker 4: for twenty four hours, so the needly goes up and down,
Speaker 4: and then of course and of course the compass needle
Speaker 4: is pointing to ourselves. The wind comes from the south,
Speaker 4: it blowing towards the south. It's one day and one
Speaker 4: night every year. The sun rises once and it sets
Speaker 4: once during a year, so it's but then again it's
Speaker 4: it's just ice. It's just a mathematical point there.
Speaker 5: You have to lose yourself to get the place.
Speaker 4: That's the interesting thing, because when they get to the
Speaker 4: northfoll it's not there. There, it's nothing. It's just ice,
Speaker 4: gray white, and maybe the horizon is blue. That's it,
Speaker 4: and it's moving. It's it's it's nothing there.
Speaker 2: Perhaps we should actually talk about you and iron chine.
Speaker 2: We're going to the north pole.
Speaker 3: Were going.
Speaker 4: Okay, we can slow, you can slaughter halfway and.
Speaker 2: The north So we're there, and I would like to
Speaker 2: know what is my food daylight? What will I be eating?
Speaker 2: What's the longest time you've gone on a trip? Would
Speaker 2: it be for a month? Would it be seas too much?
Speaker 4: Like sixty six to five days?
Speaker 3: Sixty five?
Speaker 4: Bring all the food you need, we do the whole time.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what are the disciplines around that? How much
Speaker 2: it will wait to carry, how much space it will take,
Speaker 2: and how much nutrition will it give you?
Speaker 4: Yes? Balance it's you eat around one kilow every day
Speaker 4: with dried food and they mix it with water. It's
Speaker 4: all dry old dryeder say weight because what is it
Speaker 4: for breakfast? You have a o oat meal?
Speaker 3: You have to use a lot of water.
Speaker 4: Then, Yeah, from melting ice and snow. Oh so you
Speaker 4: don't bring in the water. So that's a good noise,
Speaker 4: that's a goodness. So don't worry about that.
Speaker 3: Take any you just take the snow and just let it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you need to find all old ice because fresh
Speaker 4: fresh ice contains lots of salt. So you can tell
Speaker 4: by the color of the eyes if it contains salt
Speaker 4: or not. And then how do you melt it? You
Speaker 4: melt it by having little primasies that what they call
Speaker 4: it little heater, which is made in a way so
Speaker 4: all the heat from the flame goes to the pot.
Speaker 4: So even when it's minus fourteen fifty degrees, we're not
Speaker 4: heating the tent. It gets a little bit warmer because
Speaker 4: of the body heat, but it's we don't heat the tent.
Speaker 3: Why don't you want to eat?
Speaker 4: Because you want to say weight. So you have like
Speaker 4: two des liters of fuel per day, and then you
Speaker 4: have to really save everything because you've got the drag
Speaker 4: everything you need for more than two months. And then
Speaker 4: you're not having enough fuel to heat the tent, so
Speaker 4: you're freezing so much to actually you know you sometimes
Speaker 4: you start crying because you're freezing so much. But anyway,
Speaker 4: so this this old milk, but also we mix it
Speaker 4: with formula milk, dried formula milk, because that's what gives
Speaker 4: the most energy. Program and then eat the same for
Speaker 4: larnch throughout the day. Maybe some chocolate or definitely some chocolate,
Speaker 4: but with extra calories, especially made chocolate. The extra calories
Speaker 4: just as ack like a snack having brakes and maybe chocolate,
Speaker 4: like you have to get used to the taste, I
Speaker 4: really because it's so much fat in it, so it
Speaker 4: doesn't really taste well at home. But you know, the
Speaker 4: thing is this food is none of this food tastes
Speaker 4: really good when you start eating it. But then as
Speaker 4: it days and weeks pass by and you get more
Speaker 4: and more tired and more and more hungry, it tastes
Speaker 4: better and better and better, and eventually it tastes as
Speaker 4: good as a food that we recoffee. Absolutely, that's the
Speaker 4: whole thing that expeditions. You need to be really well prepared.
Speaker 4: It's like this Nowigian explorer Amundson road that victory awaits
Speaker 4: the one who has everything in order. People calls it
Speaker 4: good luck, while defeat always follows bad preparations, people calls
Speaker 4: it bad luck. It's brutal and true. Are you hungry
Speaker 4: all these hungry? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Always?
Speaker 4: So we are still meeting twice a year, but me
Speaker 4: and we're eating the food we're dreaming about while walking
Speaker 4: towards the pol Oh that's nice.
Speaker 3: So then that's all the through the day, and.
Speaker 4: Then then we have dinner, which is dried meat and
Speaker 4: either some pasta or some mushed potatoes to get some volume.
Speaker 4: And again lots of fat. And that's when.
Speaker 3: You say lots of fats. What would that be like?
Speaker 4: Quite a few spoonfuls every evening. And then because we're starving,
Speaker 4: one had to split the portions and the other one
Speaker 4: had to choose. So then you make sure that we
Speaker 4: get you know, equal portions.
Speaker 5: I have to take like implements to cook like a
Speaker 5: regular billy can or would you take special lightweight kit
Speaker 5: that you can use to cook and.
Speaker 4: Supert Everything is light, Everything is light. That's the thing
Speaker 4: you need to keep everything of. The slogan is think
Speaker 4: had travel light and leave the fairs behind.
Speaker 3: You your fears.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's sort kind of recipe for getting to the
Speaker 4: North Pole.
Speaker 2: Imagine estate bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the
Speaker 2: River Cafe, arriving at your door every month. Our subscription
Speaker 2: is available for six or twelve months, with each oil
Speaker 2: chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with each delivery.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect way to bring some River Cafe flavor
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Speaker 2: for them with the gift. Visit our website shop the
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Speaker 3: Now, I was.
Speaker 2: Going to ask you if you ever on a trip
Speaker 2: were aware that it might be your birthday, it might
Speaker 2: be Christmas, it might be a Norwegian holiday.
Speaker 3: Do you celebrate in any way?
Speaker 4: Yes. When I walked to the South Paul alone, I
Speaker 4: had Christmas and New Year's by myself. I was alone
Speaker 4: for fifty days and nights.
Speaker 3: And fifty were alone for fifty days and.
Speaker 4: No radio and no telephone contact, so in total solitude.
Speaker 4: So then I was still remembering Christmas Eve, which is
Speaker 4: a big day in Norway. I ate a little bit extra,
Speaker 4: had a piece of cake with me. When you're alone
Speaker 4: for such a long time, you kind of stop thinking
Speaker 4: in the sense that the past and the future don't
Speaker 4: matter so much. And of course that's a kind of
Speaker 4: a noise too, because thinking and think about the past
Speaker 4: or the future, but very much in the present. You
Speaker 4: kind of stop thinking, which is a beautiful feeling. But
Speaker 4: then on Christmas Eve, I sat there eating this cake,
Speaker 4: I felt like, at least like, you know, then I
Speaker 4: was thinking about people back home and that they were
Speaker 4: thinking about me. Because also when you're alone for such
Speaker 4: a long time you don't really believe people, then you
Speaker 4: kind of you kind of get a feeling that you're
Speaker 4: also kind of forgotten.
Speaker 3: And was ther pleasure that you had when you were okay?
Speaker 4: The pleasure is I think the pleasures on an expedition
Speaker 4: are there original sources to gratefulness in the sense that
Speaker 4: you get rest when you're tired, you get warm after
Speaker 4: having been cold, you get full after having been hungry,
Speaker 4: and that kind of that's what gratefulness is about. And
Speaker 4: I think gratefulness is one of the most undervalued things
Speaker 4: in life. And as I say, Norway, where most people
Speaker 4: should be super duper grateful all day hard and one
Speaker 4: is grateful, so you know you should almost learn in
Speaker 4: that school to be grateful. But anyway, on an expedition,
Speaker 4: you really feel gratefulness for those three reasons and the
Speaker 4: same reasons why humans very grateful one hundred thousand years ago.
Speaker 2: When you walk to the North Pole, when you walk
Speaker 2: to climb Everest, when you what is the difference between
Speaker 2: walking to it and walking towards home?
Speaker 3: Is there a different at It's.
Speaker 4: Most accidents are happening on the way down from the mountain,
Speaker 4: because then you are more self confident you're happy with yourself,
Speaker 4: you kind of reach your goal, at least that's what
Speaker 4: you believe. Then suddenly you do take a wrong step
Speaker 4: or forget being careful, and then you may have an excellence.
Speaker 2: We've talked about getting there and preparing to leave, but
Speaker 2: what about returning and what kind of process is that
Speaker 2: to return from being fifty days on your own, eating
Speaker 2: porridge with fat, walking and feeling cold, feeling hungry, feeling tired,
Speaker 2: coming back to an embracing life of friendship and people.
Speaker 4: And it's especially coming home after having not speaking with
Speaker 4: en one for fifty days. It's really strange. And eventually,
Speaker 4: after a few weeks, I didn't really miss speaking to
Speaker 4: anyone either. I'm a very social person, but I kind
Speaker 4: of liked it. I like the rhythm, I like the routee.
Speaker 4: I like you know, it's you're getting a part on agu.
Speaker 4: It's like your body doesn't stop by your skin or
Speaker 4: your thing, your tips, but kind of extended into the
Speaker 4: eyes on the horizon, and you have a dialogue with
Speaker 4: the nature. You send some ideas out to get all
Speaker 4: the thoughts back again without words, and Sunday you're back home.
Speaker 4: After a few days, you're washing machine breaks down or
Speaker 4: whatever you need, you need to have help. But after
Speaker 4: a few weeks you get you know, you get into
Speaker 4: the rhythm of daily life in olslow and I like
Speaker 4: that too.
Speaker 2: When you're back in that world, do you dream of
Speaker 2: the world of walking on your own?
Speaker 4: I don't dream about it, but I keep on going
Speaker 4: back to nature. I think that's maybe the biggest mistake
Speaker 4: humans are doing today, that we are we have separated
Speaker 4: over cells from nature, that we think we are above nature,
Speaker 4: we don't need nature, we have conquerent nature. And I
Speaker 4: think that's one of the sources for many of the
Speaker 4: problems we have in the world today, that we don't
Speaker 4: relate to nature, not understanding or accepting that we are
Speaker 4: part of nature.
Speaker 3: We've talked about being solitary.
Speaker 2: We've talked about going far away from a community, from family,
Speaker 2: from friends. We've talked about thinking about them when you're away.
Speaker 2: We thought about leaving them. We've talked about coming back.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us the effect of your obsession on
Speaker 2: people you love or people you want to love, people
Speaker 2: you want to be with.
Speaker 3: How is that affected You're exploring?
Speaker 4: It is difficult because when you have this desire, you
Speaker 4: leave so many things behind you, your family, your kids,
Speaker 4: wives and girlfriends in order and a kind of expression.
Speaker 4: All expression that every girl loves an explorer, and the
Speaker 4: recent girl loves an explorer is because it's so much fun.
Speaker 4: It's so much going on, so much curiosity, so much wonder,
Speaker 4: so many things are happening, so many adventures, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But eventually the girl that understand that this is not
Speaker 4: going to stop. All these men they went out, they
Speaker 4: had wives, girlfriends, fiances, kids, and quite often they ever
Speaker 4: came home and nobody knew what had happened.
Speaker 2: How many people died? Going to were you under the
Speaker 2: few survivors or no?
Speaker 4: It's traditionally until nineteen hundred, let's say, you know, the
Speaker 4: numbers are not hard, not easily figure out, but I said,
Speaker 4: around one thousand people child and seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: one died, So it was The North Pole has been
Speaker 4: the most difficult place to reach on Earth, and also
Speaker 4: where people had sacrificed the most, I would think, and
Speaker 4: also the longest period because people tried for four hundred years.
Speaker 4: And what's interesting is that no one knows who got
Speaker 4: to the pole. The North Pole remains mysterious, and that's
Speaker 4: also one of the reasons I want to write the
Speaker 4: book from prehistoric times, when people sitting in the northern
Speaker 4: Hemisphere looking into the skies ten thousand years ago, one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand years ago, everything was going around and routed
Speaker 4: all the stars, the Earth was moving in circles. Just
Speaker 4: one fixed point in the whole world, and that was
Speaker 4: the north star to Polaris. And then people start to wonder,
Speaker 4: why is that this one fixed point and what's below
Speaker 4: it on Earth? And understood this probably midnight Sun. And
Speaker 4: then they started to have this idea that it was
Speaker 4: original life was at a north pole. And as late
Speaker 4: as eighteen eighty four the dean at Boston University brought
Speaker 4: a full book to prove that Adam and Eve and
Speaker 4: the Garden of Eden had been at a north pole.
Speaker 4: That was a common idea, belief until the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 3: When did you go to Cambridge to study philosophy?
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety five, I already had a law degree.
Speaker 4: But in ninety five, I or ninety four I kind
Speaker 4: of felt going on expeditions had become a routine like
Speaker 4: any other routine. You get a goal, you get sponsorships,
Speaker 4: you do the expedition, you do talks, you do maybe
Speaker 4: a writ a book and then another expedition. So I
Speaker 4: want to break free from it. And I was also
Speaker 4: fed up kind of talking about it. Fortunately they let
Speaker 4: me in on Cambridge like a besitting scholar. It was
Speaker 4: true privilege to be there and really dig deep into
Speaker 4: moral philosophy.
Speaker 3: Do you have a philosopher that has had an impact
Speaker 3: on you?
Speaker 4: Yes, quite a few. It is Spinulza and also this
Speaker 4: Norwegian philosopher RNNs who also an expert on Spinulsa. I
Speaker 4: knew it, but he kind of also explained to me
Speaker 4: that kind of importance in life, that you need physical pain,
Speaker 4: you need psychological pain to have a great life. I
Speaker 4: think it's important every day to make life more difficult
Speaker 4: and the best things in life are difficult to achieve.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe, when you said lunch is now running
Speaker 2: from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking at www. Rivercafe
Speaker 2: dot co or give us a call. Can I go
Speaker 2: back to one thing, which is about food? When you
Speaker 2: were growing up and you've had this obsession in walking,
Speaker 2: and did you find food an interesting discovery? I went
Speaker 2: to Norway probably in nineteen ninety or very very early
Speaker 2: on I think when Rose and I were doing a
Speaker 2: TV series and we went to where we flew from
Speaker 2: Oslo the north to see where they make the salt
Speaker 2: cod because that's you know, salt cod is one of
Speaker 2: the great industries because of religion. So people who live
Speaker 2: in Brazil or lived far away and had to have
Speaker 2: fish Catholics on a Friday. They depended on salt cod
Speaker 2: travel and.
Speaker 4: It was the most important thing Norway exported for several
Speaker 4: hundred years. So it may kind of the west coast
Speaker 4: of Norway, you know, people get really rich. And also
Speaker 4: the Northern Park because of the black export.
Speaker 3: Has the fishing change.
Speaker 4: With climate, everything kind of changes. Yeah, so it's it's
Speaker 4: the further north to get like the northern part of
Speaker 4: Norway and small wine. Everything is changes because the temperature
Speaker 4: is increasing like around small but three times more than
Speaker 4: the rest of the world. Are they still whales there
Speaker 4: are whales. Yeah. Fortunately, you know they're protected such a whales.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can't fish well meat anymore.
Speaker 4: Now you know, they can do it for scientific purposes
Speaker 4: and then some you know, yeah, so it's yeah, so
Speaker 4: you can still get whale beats.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about when you're training to do the walk.
Speaker 5: Do you need to like put on waste? So you
Speaker 5: have to eat to put on weight, and because you
Speaker 5: must be training to do you have to train to walk,
Speaker 5: you get like starving, but have to eat really carefully
Speaker 5: or are you're allowed to just go madly.
Speaker 4: Like you have to. It's a good question because you
Speaker 4: have to gain weight at the same time as exercising
Speaker 4: a lot, and then you also have to train your
Speaker 4: body to absorb everything you eat. More like so you
Speaker 4: need on an expedition, you need to get as many
Speaker 4: calories program as possible, and then you need to eat fat.
Speaker 4: And if you eat lots of fat, your body won't
Speaker 4: absorb it. So what we did is the time before
Speaker 4: we left, I had porridge in the morning, lots of
Speaker 4: extra fat. Yeah, so I had a bucket with this
Speaker 4: fat in my kitchen and I'll add it in every
Speaker 4: meal for a long time, for like, you know, a
Speaker 4: half year or something, and then again twelve fourteen kilos
Speaker 4: and then yeah, fourteen killers.
Speaker 5: See, when you're out in the North Pole, you must
Speaker 5: be going how many calories do you need a day there?
Speaker 4: You need probably need maybe ten thousands of day whatever.
Speaker 4: But that's too much to eat. So we eat around
Speaker 4: six thousand calories a day. But then you all the
Speaker 4: fat is just you know, draining off you. So eventually
Speaker 4: you get rid of the fat and then also lots
Speaker 4: of muscle mass. So it's it's it's not super healthy.
Speaker 5: So when you're training, you're eating, you're bunking up. And
Speaker 5: is there any enjoyment in eating when you're trying to
Speaker 5: add tablespoons of fat to everything you eat?
Speaker 4: No, you know, and eat a lot of chocolate, et cetera,
Speaker 4: and it's it's, of course, as everyone knows, when you
Speaker 4: eat chocolate, the first bite is the best and then
Speaker 4: you keep on eating. Yeah, but you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: a part of the game.
Speaker 2: When I talk to a footballer now, as I did
Speaker 2: with someone called Ian Right or Garry then, and they
Speaker 2: talk about how the concept of what you eat now
Speaker 2: when you're an athlete has changed so much in totally
Speaker 2: even thirty years four years, they used to eat a
Speaker 2: huge meal before a game. You know, they didn't think
Speaker 2: about any idea that food would have an effect on
Speaker 2: your performance, whereas now the science of performance and food
Speaker 2: is so sophisticated. If someone was going on or you
Speaker 2: were going on a trip, would you still have powers
Speaker 2: with all that fat change.
Speaker 4: I think you know, we in the nineties we kind
Speaker 4: of reinvented what you could eat on an expedition. People
Speaker 4: said to us, it's not possible to eat so much
Speaker 4: calories program as we did, but by training over bodies
Speaker 4: to do it, we were able to. And of course
Speaker 4: what we were eating are very different from what top
Speaker 4: athletes are eating. So I think you know, the way
Speaker 4: you know the food we had is still relevant today.
Speaker 4: It is. But of course, like in the nineties footballers
Speaker 4: in England they were after the games, they were stopping
Speaker 4: and buying fish and chips and hamburgers. Favorable after the
Speaker 4: game all the players was absolutely ridiculous by today's standard.
Speaker 2: And if you were, as I was saying, experience pain,
Speaker 2: experience hunger, loneliness, and you think that you do need comfort,
Speaker 2: is there a food that you reach for.
Speaker 4: When you are on the expedition and if you're hungry,
Speaker 4: just want as much as possible, and you want fat.
Speaker 4: So this polar bear was shot. We cooked parts of
Speaker 4: it when it got to the pole. Tasted like cold oil,
Speaker 4: like an oil to get from cold so that tastes
Speaker 4: doesn't taste good Bye. Civilized standards, but we kind of
Speaker 4: you just loved it.
Speaker 5: What would be your top meal that you'd be like,
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'd do anything to just eat that
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 4: Lots of meat and fat. Yeah, I loved it as
Speaker 4: a kid. And then I think about those happy moments,
Speaker 4: and I think that's also why I love a great
Speaker 4: pasta today.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, thank you
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair