Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

The death of Edward parents when he was three has been a mystery.

But Edward knows his grandfather's affairs brother and is somehow connected.

Edward is driven to unravel the mystery of his parents death in France, near the Sun River.

To discuss The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting, Let's meet my guest, Kathy Freese.

Welcome, Kathy.

Good to have you.

Thank you.

Yes, Well, nice to be back.

It's good to have you because you were the first person that figured out all of the themes in this book.

It's so packed, isn't it?

Lots of mystery.

But I absolutely loved this book.

It's one of the best books I've read in a long time.

There you go.

That is an absolute backup for this book.

Yeah, well, there are so many themes, but let's talk first about some of the Norwegian and Shetland Island food we're going to make.

What are you going to be doing?

First, I'm going to try lefse.

I've never made it before, but it's a Norwegian flatbread, similar to a lot of other flatbreads from different countries.

And they eat it with cinnamon and butter.

They eat it with cheese.

They do all sorts of things with it's kind of a jack of all trades.

But you can buy it.

You can buy it.

I was only able to get it online, or I can go up in Minnesota, Minnesota.

And sell it.

Well, it is nice to know because some people just don't cook and they like to know where can I find something like this?

Well, and I am.

I'm going to.

Did you mention your other?

then.

Then I'm going to do a Norwegian dessert called riskrem, which they especially eat at Christmas.

But.

And this is rice.

Yes, we know.

Getting into here.

Then I'm going to make Mary's simple Shetland fish stew.

It's simple, but there's a lot going on here.

I chop up a lot of things, and we're going to have an arranged amount of different fish, some salmon, some cod.

And what was the other one?

tilapia.

And I'm going to chop them up.

But first we're going we're going to melt some butter and some olive oil.

We're not melting it, but heating it and then will add a lot of ingredients and a lot of chopped, finely chopped carrots and onion and leek.

You get the picture and then we put the fish in the three different kinds that I will chop up.

So let's get started here.

And I'm going to start you up and make the batter for the lefse, which is basically a left over mashed potatoes mixed with flour.

And then you fry it and roll it.

Roll it and then fry it.

But anyway, we'll see if it works or not.

Well, I think it's good to try this.

I've always thought, how do people have leftover mashed potatoes?

Yeah, because my kids always liked it.

My husband likes mashed potatoes, and they just wouldn't let anything walk away from the table.

And so.

But this is.

This is a dessert.

No, the other.

One, no riskrem.

yes, right.

Dessert, This is.

You can eat lefse for breakfast, Lunch, dinner, whatever.

And it looks a little bit like in the package, if you buy it a little bit like a naan which, you know, the Indian.

It's not as thick as the naan.

It's a very thin and thin.

Okay.

Well this book to me, I had to read it several times.

I did get confused because we start in Norway.

We meet our main man.

Edvard.

Edvard, who has lost his parents.

They were killed.

Yeah, they drowned.

They drowned.

And in fact, the Norwegian name for this book is Swim with Those Who Drowned.

Yeah, it's interesting.

And Mytting just.

They couldn't figure out a way to make that sound right in English.

So that's why it's a 16.

The interesting thing about this book is there are so many mysteries.

Yes.

It's hard to figure out what's going on sometimes, but it's beautifully written.

You've got some passages you pulled out that are that are really very nicely done.

And the translator did a good.

Translator did an excellent.

Because it was written in.

And they put a lot of Norwegian in it.

Like here there was a hole in each of us.

So we searched for the hole in our self-righteousness because that was the common thread that held the village together.

Self-righteousness.

Yeah, the and there's a theme of loneliness in this book, too.

Well, some people live in countries that are kind of cold and separated from people, and it's the way they develop and they become known for that.

Well, Edvard was a potato farmer.

That's why I thought Potato, lefse.

That's a good idea.

Appropriate thing.

He was a simple, not a simple person.

I don't mean that.

But he was plain.

He was a farmer.

He raised potatoes and he had all kinds of potatoes.

And that was his life.

And he had never even been to the capital.

No, he'd never left.

But his grandfather raised him, and his grandfather fought for the Nazis in World War Two.

And his other uncle, who was the.

Boss of the resistance in France.

And they never could reconcile the two.

The two of them could never reconcile.

And and the neighbors and people in the village kind of remembered that, in fact, there's a swastika painted on Sarah's car.

Yeah.

And this is like 1992.

They're still remembering.

And that's another theme in here.

And I think that's why they stayed on the farm, because they were never kind of accepted in the village.

But the family was close.

They're kind of, you know, tight knit.

They don't talk much, but when they do, they get things done.

And so we start out that way.

And then the I can't remember who tells Edvard that he his parents had disappeared when they all went to France.

The grandfather never explained that whole thing.

And Edvard is always wondering what really happened, what happened.

And that sets the whole thing off, because then the grandfather dies.

And I'm not telling anything out of.

No, because we've got to move the action, you know?

But you've got all these old uncles and grandpas and and they he decides he wants to go.

He when I say he where I've talked about three people, the young man who he wants to go to France to where the Sum River is, that was one of the bloodiest battles in World War one.

Which was this was really interesting to find out about the son.

I mean, I heard you know, I knew about it, but yeah.

I haven't been there.

But I would I would like to do a trip like that.

I'm not particularly into battlefields because I think it's so tragic.

But I am going to start this soup and I.

Just didn't want that what I did.

I put flour with the mashed potatoes and then I rolled it into a ball.

Yes, like this.

Now I'm going to flatten out a little, put it here, and then I'm going to try to woops, roll it out.

I'm going to turn this down.

Right, Because that hits so fast.

And while you're talking doing that, I am just I've chopped finely red pepper leek celery, I have some onion and we're going to cook that.

That's kind of the base of this.

Add about a pint of I couldn't find fish stock, but we're going to have some vegetable broth.

Then I will add the fish and we'll add all these herbs.

We will let it cook and let it cook.

And this would be I don't want it's not every meal or every second meal, but it is a special meal in Norway.

So you are now rolling.

And you know it's supposed to be real pretty and in a nice circle.

But we don't know that.

You don't know.

That we are going to be supposed to be in the circle right?

So this says I've.

Had I had luckily I bought some ice.

This doesn't turn out.

let's see, I've got the garlic, a little bit of garlic in here And its supposed to be three cloves and we'll add salt and pepper.

So Edvard, anyway.

Decide.

His grandfather dies, so he decides he's going to go.

And the sun first he's going to find the other out.

The other?

The uncle.

the other one.

So, craftsman.

Yeah.

So he goes to the one who was in the resistance.

So he, he goes to the Shetland Islands where he finds out the uncle was and the description of the Shetland Islands in the book are really good and.

It's pretty bleak.

So it's very bleak.

Yes.

Nope.

Very, very few trees, but it's windswept and, and a lot happened there.

And then Norway lost the Shetland Islands and now it belongs to England.

Well, Scotland.

Yeah.

Britain.

Well, we'll let Scotland be the owner, right.

Yeah.

So that's why we're there in this part of the world.

And he then he does go there and he meets.

He meets Gwen.

yes, it.

Did.

Yeah.

If you want a plate for that.

House, get a plate.

yeah.

It's right back there.

He meets Gwen and Gwen is a character.

She is too.

I didn't like her.

No, she's not dependable in the sense of the she's and the.

Yes.

And I'm trying to figure out if they're related.

She and.

No.

No.

Okay.

And she is the father that fought in World War.

Grandpa.

Grandfather.

In World War One.

He had in the South a lot of the Scottish black watch.

There's a lot of history in this.

In this.

Yes.

You learn a lot.

it's so beautifully written.

It is.

And I have to say, I watched the the.

well, this is a physics.

And this is.

Earth.

And I and I think I can help you here.

This is a little wider.

Well, yeah, well, see.

This is the way life is.

Yeah.

And we look, we just keep on going.

I'm going to use my fingers..

So I'm going to there, continue with my cooking.

You're going to find some utensil.

We're going to be right back.

And in the meantime, we want to give you the menu, the menu, and then we'll come back and talk more about places and the people.

We'll be right back.

We're back.

We have our cooking utensils.

You have to get a new one.

Reestablished and you're going to be wasting away here.

Well, I'm going to whip some cream for the riskrem.

Riskrem.

So now I'm going to make some noise and hopefully this will.

Go real fast and then spread all over everything.

Well, we love whipping cream, and I'm going to put in some lemon juice.

And what else here?

We're going to well, we put in some red hot peppers, tarragon, fennel, seed, all these these wonderful all things go.

And you've got your your.

Yes.

That makes it thicker, doesn't it.

Yes.

And I had everything in the refrigerator lighter because supposedly whipping cream whip faster.

Yes.

You have everything cold.

Yes.

So this is almost ready.

this is what makes it so good.

I am putting in some what is this, vegetable broth?

Because we this is soup.

So we need some broth here.

We need a base, a pint.

Then I have a glass.

Here's a measure.

A glass of white wine, dry white wine.

And our soup is coming along.

We're going to heat it up a little higher.

You get your whipping cream there.

Now it's not quite ready and.

Little bit more raw.

And that'll be it.

All right, now I'm going to add a little touch, a fish sauce, just a little bit.

And I happen to have Thai fish sauce.

And I'm cool.

And we will add that now, here goes the fish in here.

Yeah, that's good enough.

And we will let this heat up.

And ladies and gentlemen, this is our fish stew and I think I could serve big bowls of it, or maybe 6 to 8 small bowls of it.

And we could even have a fish.

Course, we could have meat course.

But I think this is very, very nice.

look at that.

Well, now what?

What did you just put in there?

I just put in the grills.

Which is basically rice porridge.

And I'm going to.

Here we go again.

This.

I've got it on low.

So it's kitchen music.

Yeah.

So we're going to let this cook and at the very end, I will add some dill.

And here's the last piece of fish.

We're going to cover this, keep our eye on it and then at the very end, I'll add some dill.

And this is really, this is going to be so good.

The interesting thing about this book is I wood takes a. Yeah, it's the focus.

Focus.

Yes.

And the 16 trees of the Somme are the 16 walnut trees that survived the battle of the Somme.

And they're a special walnut that people want to use as gun stock.

gun stock.

by the way, yes.

We go into a gun shop and we see how English dress and how they address the wood of the guns.

And how they how they make a gun.

That was really fascinating.

I found it very.

And this wood is because the Germans use terrible mustard gas and all sorts of different chemicals.

Yeah.

In the woods, everything died, including most of the troops.

Yeah, and it's awful.

But the wood is extremely expensive and.

Walnut is expensive.

Walnut.

And then this particular walnut is.

But that's the whole thing behind the book is finding the wood, because somebody did cut a lot of it down.

And where did it go?

Where did it go?

Did we ever find out?

We can't.

See.

We can't say, because that's that's the mystery in the book.

Yes.

Where did this would go?

That was growing by the Somme river where all these men were killed, were.

The largest number of people killed in any battle.

Was in the this.

Area.

And so every terrible is there.

He's the little boy that disappeared.

He is safe.

We don't tell you who saves him.

But Gwen this so-called friend, they drift apart and they get back together again, which I. I didn't really care for her.

But she died, and.

She did enliven the story because this is all.

She brought Edvard out of his lonely.

Norwegian mountain background.

And yes, she gets him going and he gets he starts to react and he gets mad at her.

Then he loves her and it's it it changes completely.

But we never but he's.

Still trying to find out what really happened to his parents.

And as a three year old child, he disappeared for four days and nobody knew where he was.

If he was.

Alive.

And because they find the parents but not him, and this it's that part of the mystery.

Is very mysterious.

It all it does work out.

We want you to read it.

So we are going to tell you and the details are amazing.

And these little asides that he talks about, you know, there was one other one, but I can't remember what it was.

Well, he talks about his descriptions when he said suddenly the storm comes up in the Shetland Islands and he says it's like somebody put wax paper over the sun.

Yeah, just all these.

Yeah.

You see the wrinkled paper and it's the rain just it's wonderful.

And not hackneyed.

No, absolutely no original.

And then he talks about this Circassian grade walnut.

Yes.

And that it's named after the Circassian women known to be the most beautiful women in the world.

Well, of course.

Yeah.

They're always the most beautiful women someplace.

Right.

You talk about in every book.

And let's see, where's the lid of this?

Well, we won't worry about that now.

So, you know, there were there we're doing this kind of quickly makes it sound like it's very simple, but it's got depth to it.

It's rich.

We are on the island.

It's called Haaf Gruney Gruney.

And that's but we even have a wonderful map in this book that shows us where we're going in these islands.

And Haaf Gruney is where the big house is that these wealthy people had lived in and where everything took place on the Shetland Islands in their family.

So in the meantime, his potatoes are starting to grow.

He's getting worried about them.

He's worried about his sheep back in the farm.

And so we've got that going on.

And but he does say at the end, at the end that he was afraid of being a lonely, emotionally stunted person.

And this whole thing that happened, this which was over only like a six month period at the time of the book, when Edward is looking for the answers to what happened to his parents, he he realizes he has come out of his shell.

Yes.

Part of it is this traveling, this woman that kind of enraged him, but he kind of fell for her.

So he his senses have been shaken up and it was good for him.

It was very good for him.

And we aren't going to say what happened to this person or that person.

He does get back to the farm Eventually.

The sheep are still alive.

The potatoes have been picked up.

And there is a whole section to on the woods and at the farm, the birch trees, the flame.

Birch trees.

Yeah.

And and yet there's so much history of Norway and Shetland, World War One, World War two, the French.

We didn't even talk about the French Resistance and what happened around the Somme during World War Two with the Nazis and the Resistance.

Yes.

And It's full.

It's very enriching.

And it makes you see how through the time, how, how some of these people intermarried with people from other countries.

And they also didn't talk much because it didn't help you to give out too much information during those warriors.

So many Europeans are reticent about talking to you and sharing their ideas and this sort of thing.

And, you know.

Yes.

And and the how can I say it like the sins of the fathers and the grandfathers live on.

Yes.

And how they affect the children.

The children, the grandchildren.

Yes.

Whoa.

That fish stew looks really good.

Now, what are you putting in there now?

That dill.

dried dill.

I'll bet.

Now everybody's got a little different way of doing this.

And I squeezed a half a lemon in there, too.

We're going to let it cook.

You're all set, aren't you?

Yes, Everything is completed.

And then I'll put some raspberries on top of this.

riskrem And it's a dessert.

We'll have to try it.

It's wonderful.

So we are going to take a short break.

We're going to come back and review our food and kind of add some more great insights.

And then and then so take a look.

Now we're going to show you the list of books written by this young writer from Norway.

We'll be right back.

I liked this book.

I love this.

You loved it.

I think if I read it one more time, I would love it.

The writing is just gorgeous.

You know?

It is.

I thought about this book, thought about writing it when he was 14 years old.

14, and he's in his fifties now.

Took a long time, I think.

Got it together.

Let's just have a quick review of our food.

You're wonderful.

Lefse which you can eat any thing with anything, any type of flatbread that every country has a flatbread, you know.

And you can buy it or send off.

For.

Yeah.

And it's made out of potatoes, which.

I tell you, those potato bread.

And then this riskrem.

Which is a dessert, but it's basically rice pudding with whipped cream.

So who wouldn't like it?

Really good.

I tasted it and I said, this is unique.

And then, of course, we have the fish stew.

And there are three different kinds of fish in that and lots of herbs and spices and veggies and.

It smells wonderful.

It really does.

And I've got a whole pot of it here.

I wanted to mention that my favorite part of the book, it's not even a literary thing.

It's not even, you know, intellectual.

I like the way Gwen was trying to make our man, Edvard, into a British man coming in to a gun shop.

And how you wear your clothes and you wear your.

You wear the best white Egyptian cotton shirt.

Yes.

And it has to look like it's been worn a while.

Yes.

Brand new.

Right.

And the shoes, if they have some scuffs, that's okay because you've used them.

But don't come in there.

Sloppy and dirty tennis shoes and don't come in with a, you know, a real shiny jacket.

Just look like you know what you're doing.

And she actually said the people with the money are the ones that make the decisions.

And see what I liked.

I like the way he woven all the histories from World War One all the way through to the mid-nineties and the different countries and everything.

I just thought the writing was fabulous, the descriptions, everything it was.

And I had.

My one suggestion is if you're going to read this book, read it until you finish it.

It's going to take three days.

Don't try to do ten things and read it because it is detailed and there's so much going on.

You really have to concentrate.

Concentrate, and you will thoroughly enjoy it.

So I have to say the food is good, the book is good, and we hope you'll join us again.

I just want to say that remember, good food, good friends, good books make for a very, very good life.

Thank you, Kathy.

Well, thank you for having me again.

Well, I'm thank you for straightening out on the themes here.

And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.