conversations with: Otto grønne bønner

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Conversations with.... otto from grønne bønner:

I want you to meet Otto - one of the sweetest, most genuine, warmest souls I have met in denmark so far. otto created the most beautiful space in copenhagen: grønne bønner. a place with so much soul and intention. a place that brings together different farms and people who care. vegetables, fruits and herbs brought by farmers themselves.

inhaling different scents and aromas. different shades of green. different shapes and textures. discovering new vegetable varities. conversations about the produce. laughing about their shapes. sharing favourite ways to prepare them.

last summer, when I moved into town and heard that grønne bønner was opening I almost cried out of joy. it made my heart very happy. I remember the first time I biked to grønne bønner I arrived with the widest smile. I remember telling otto “thank you so much. this is the one thing that was really missing in copenhagen”. (I always loved visiting farms and bringing greens home with me or going to the grønt market weekly. but this meant having access to the produce of local farms from mon-sat. so grateful.)
during that time I lived just a few blocks away, so I almost stopped by every day. my favourite routine. returning home with both baskets of my bike filled, people either starring or smiling at me (or at leek and fennels peaking out) , excited to use and taste the fresh ingredients.

experiencing the seasons and produce change with every visit from july to december. bright, vibrant greens beeing replayed by root vegetable and earthier colours. bundles of fresh herbs slowly being hang upside down to dry. from berries, to plums to apples.
from tomatoes and cucumbers to potatoes and pumpkin.

nomatter how rainy or cold, otto was always there in his brown knitted sweathers until the winter season of stillness came. we could all feel his love and passion, and deep connection to what he was doing.

I hope you enjoy reading his pure, honest words, memories, insights into his mind and little stories as much as I did. some answers will make you smile, some might make you reflect. I hope you visit, say hi and support him at grønne bønner and bring home a bag of vegetables yourself once in a while once he reopens for the new season. also, after reading this you need to try some silverberries for yourself in autumn (but make sure to leave enough for otto... )

<3

hi otto,
a few words about yourself, where you grew up, what you did over the last years?

otto:

“Never know what to say to this.
I grew and grow up in Brønshøj in an extraordinarily loving and weird family in a big wooden house that my father has been continuously building for 35 years.
It’s still not finished, and maybe things are not supposed to ever really finish.
It’s really beautiful. There are decade old pencil notes on many of the unpainted plywood walls - painting them white now would be sad.
Two older brothers and a little sister, and my grandma lives just across the big road, in a huge plant paradise, the infamous rainforest of Brønshøj. I also grew up in that garden. Grandma is 92 and probably my best friend. Atleast top 2.

I’ve spent my time in recent years trying to find out what to do with my time -
working in lille Bakery for almost 4 years with Mia Boland and the gang as well as acquiring a tiny piece of land with my siblings put me on the path to working with farming, vegetables and people.”

why the name “grønne bønner”?
otto:
“ I love naming. But anyone who cares about naming knows how impossible it is.
A good name has to come to you - uninvited. The long and kind of dumb story goes:

I was partially heart broken on a train home from two months of working in rural Ardèche, two winters ago. For a danish kid, I had suddenly been spending a lot of time kissing the cheeks of rural small-scale french farmers, who very proudly referred to themselves as “paysannes”, translated to “peasants”. The paysannes were in conscious opposition to industrial farmers - the “agriculteurs”.
I so felt their love for their soils - it was kind of amazing to get to meet them.
They were very clearly in connection and partnership with the landscapes they were interacting with, and they seemed so wise and full of life to me. They were also french, which helped.

In the train, I was reflecting on this, and I thought of what the danish equivalent to paysannes might be: “bønder”. Not a word with a generally positive connotation in Denmark, I’d say.
I jotted it down in my untitled notebook, which was full of name-brainstorms and rationalizations on how to name the project.
The word “bønder” always made me think of the word “bønner”, meaning “beans”, because that’s what me and my sister would jokingly call the jacks when playing cards back in the day.

That’s when I realized the second and deeper meeting of the word “bønner”, and the name had come to me, uninvited. The notebook now had a title.”

how did your love for fresh, organic produce form and develop? / your personal connection to fresh produce.
otto:

“Definitely my mother. All my life.
I actually just saw a VHS video of myself eating for the first time as a seven month old guy, with my two older brothers laughing at me.
I guess ever since that first spoonful of rice porridge.
My mother has a whole wall of cookbooks, and they’re not for show.
She loves to cook and she fed all of us that same love.

Now, the availability of real, fresh produce in Brønshøj and much of Denmark has had a tough ride, unless you’re rich with time and a car to drive to the few and far between real farms. My mom had work, kids and a bike with triple baskets, and she somehow still managed to be crazy creative in cooking healthy, varied, exciting food for us every single day. Forever grateful for that.

My understanding that “the ingredient is everything” came later.
I think you kind of have to relearn and question certain things as you mature, and when all you know is supermarkets on the corners, and the same fucking flourescant light plastic-wrapped cucumber your entire life, ingredients doesn’t spark much excitement by default.

Meeting actual local farmers, listening to them, seeing actual local farms, all thanks to lille and Grønt Marked, made me question and relearn a lot.
The origin and the growing of an ingredient is what excites me now.”

still listening to your “grønne bønner” playlist on repeat. what inspires the sounds you choose? favourite song / album at the moment?
otto:

“Music heals and hurts and defines my whole world. I’m deeply affected by sounds and soundscapes - I have always wanted to be a musician, but I never had the patience or skill to sit down and learn.
I have big ears though, and I think they communicate very closely with my heart and mind, so puzzling lists of music together for me is a joy.
I guess my list for the greengrocer tries to be calm and welcoming for all - but not bland.
I guess it’s the voice of the greengrocer. I hope the vegetables like it.

A thousand lies by Smerz silently dropped yesterday. Truly magical! The coolest.

Favorite album these days must be:
Through The Devil Softly by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
An older Irish vinduespudser at lille introduced me to HPTWI a few years back, and I just now discovered this one album.”

any crazy vegetable varities/kinds you discovered since selling veggies? / any special vegetables / fruits you think are underrated you would want more people to know of?
otto:

“Sølvbær. Silverberries. AKA “Autumn Olives”.
Kind of all plants are crazy - but this one I think is so very crazy.

As a growing plant it helps out and feeds fellow nearby plants by pulling nitrogen from the air and fixing it in the soil through its roots exudates. A select few plants do this, such as peas, beans and clover, and it just seems to be a very friendly quality.

Even while helping others, the bush itself is eager to spread out and grow, and it produces an abundant crop of tiny bloodred berries with tinier silver speckles, and the green sturdy leaves have an olive-tree-silverish dusty sheen to them. One of the most beautiful colors to me, rarely seen in Denmark.
The berries taste uniquely gummy-like, red-curranty, sour, sweet, astringent, with a crunchy relatively large seed in the center, and a customer in the greengrocer said it reminded her of pomegranate seeds, and she was spot on.
Great for savory and great for sweets.

Verner from Bellingehus Frugtplantage also tried making a jam from them, it turns a bit grey, but grey is great. They should mainly be cherished when they’re ripe, and frozen as they are.

I can eat handfuls, literally. Anything that I can eat handfuls of and not feel sick - quite the contrary - makes me feel like a bear in the woods. Great feeling.

Then, on top of all that craziness, depending on the variety, they produce their berries in November. That is just crazy. A month where we’re coming to grips with saying farewell to berries and fresh vibrant foods, these autumn olives pop out.

Why the fuck aren’t we growing them all over the place? Excuse me.”

silverberries.

the 3 things would you plant first in a garden?
otto:

“Well, silver berries. Nut trees and quince trees.

Well, this is what I have planted in my siblings garden.
I am not very patient, and gardening, like music, requires a lot of skill and patience.
I get along better with slow and perennial trees and bushes.”

what inspired you to create grønne bønner? what was your intention? what motivates you to keep going?
otto:

“The idea for GB came one day out of a blue sky, when I was also heartbroken.
Very strange. The whole idea presented itself to me, as I was sitting, drying my eyes.
I can recommend being alone, quiet and thinking if you want to go idea-fishing.

The intention was to focus on the tangible, connect dots, keep it simple, and to build a space empowering and amplifying the voices of people that are already doing the actual hard work of regenerative farming, and not just talking about it.

You motivate me to keep going - it’s easy. People are wildly supportive, and I’m very thankful for that.”

your favourite scent? + why.
otto:

“Walnut leaf. Try rubbing one. So fragrant.
There are way more walnut trees around than you’d think.
Both in Danish cities and country sides.”

your favourite sound? + why.
otto:

“Hmm. I love birds. I’d say we take their presence for granted.
They provide a very uplifting, light and subtle soundtrack to the outdoor realm.
Particularly, try to notice the clicking sound that a jackdaw makes.
I can’t replicate it, it’s such a unique, strong and lovely sound.”

your favourite season? + why.
otto:

“Just like tomatoes are the best crop of summer, summer is the best season of seasons.
It pulls people out of their moldy drywall houses - and its warm and bright lit.

green tomatoes

what is your connection to the grønt marked and lille bakery?
otto:

“All my thanks are theirs.
Friends of lille started Grønt Marked, and they held their first markets in the street right in front of lille. Without these people and their heartfelt passion for trying to better things, I would never know to try and make GB. Again, all my thanks belong to Mia Boland.
And without the farmers doing the hard work? Nothing.”

one thing you learned from working at lille? and one of your favourite memories?
otto:

“I think “being open” answers both of those.

The countless days opening the bakery early mornings are my favorite memories. Sometimes coming in with Jimmy at 5AM to bake the bread, putting on new music, and watching the sky wake up in purple. So calm.
The chill guests arrive 8AM, and you’d hope that Lala wasn’t late for the breakfast rush later on. Once she arrived, we’d take turns queuing the daily soundtrack on the speakers and catching up while washing dishes.

Refshaleøen mornings are special to me.
It’s a privilege to work in places that focus greatly on well-being, and it’s a privilege to meet so many new people all the time.”

what´s your favourite spring, summer, autumn, winter vegetable?
otto:

“Favorites change all the time. I don’t know if “pick one favorite” are a real thing to me, but I’ll play along.

What is rhubarb? Is it a vegetable, a herb, a fruit? Rhubarb wins spring.
But favas mustn’t be forgotten !!

Summer: if you don’t say a big juicy ripe dark red tomato, you just might be lying to yourself.

Autumn: I wrote a little paragraph on pumpkins, but then I remembered chestnuts and I had to delete it. They both deserve northern peoples attention, but far far far far far too few people eat and grow chestnuts.

Winter: My oldest brother did something to some yellow beets the other day.
Let me ask him.. Okay, he baked them until soft, thick yoghurt underneath, he cut a black currant bush and infused an oil with solbærgren, which has so much flavor of early early spring. Good wintertrick.
It made me appreciate the beets a lot, they’re now my current favorite.”

your favourite herb? + your favourite way to incorporate it into dishes?
otto:

“Sage. Set sail in olive oil or butter.”

what´s your favourite woodfire food? (eg bread on sticks, corn,...)
otto:

“I don’t know… Fish over fire is maybe the most delicious thing on this planet?”

tell us a little about the weekly talks / the beautiful community gatherings you organize.
otto:

“They’re an attempt to draw attention to regenerative farming through different talks, topics and artforms. I see different types of people in the small crowds turn out to different types of events. All in all it gets people actively thinking about how their food is produced, and how it could be produced.

They’re very spontaneous events. We announce them the week before.
No signup no fees, it’s very down to earth.
I owe huge thanks to all the different speakers and artists that took the “stage” last season. They did it for the cause with very humble payment, that we got through different smaller grants and funding.

We live our lives in the digital world far far far too much if you ask me, and these gatherings are just an open invitation to anyone who’s in town to swing by on a saturday, and see whats going on in the physical world.”

your favourite way of preparing a meal from the left over veggies? (salad, stew,...?)
otto:

“For good reason I mainly eat leftover veggies in my daily life.
I’d treat every ingredient differently and do as little as possible generally.
Follow your heart and fail - that’s what I do.
I mainly eat failures for dinner. They make more fun dishes than comfort food to me.”

otto preparing saturday soup from left over vegetables. salad with all the greens and herbs you can dream of.

miso soup by Miho

how close are your relationships to the farmer?
otto:

“I care a lot about them. I’ve known many of them for years now. I know their values, their beliefs and their backstories. I’ve been to almost all their farms and helped out and stayed for a while at a few of them, and when they deliver the vegetables, I get to see them very regularly, some several times a week.
Sounds kind of like a close friendship, doesn’t it?

There’s zero monetary involvement between the farmers and GB, but we want each other to do well, and to lift up each other.
I think these healthy relationships are very necessary in this kind of a farmers market.
The farmers selling in GB all see eachother as colleagues, not competitors.”

what makes you sad when it comes to people´s nutrition/food shopping habits (apart from that “ same fucking flourescant light plastic-wrapped cucumber”) ? + what gives you hope/what would you wish to see more of?
otto:

“I don’t know enough about peoples habits and their reasoning behind them, and judging people on what they eat seems quite mean to me.
I know a lot of people are addicted to sugars and processed shit which seems to be not good, and I know a lot of people feel uninspired and uninterested in cooking, mainly because the Danish shopping experience takes place in the supermarkets, which are mainly full of sugar and processed shit at a low price.
Low price equals compromises somewhere in the production chain.
Workers rights? Soil health? Nutritional value? Destruction of natural landscapes?
Yeah okay, I guess those things make me sad.

I’d hope that the people that do have money would prioritize supporting local, regenerative farmers higher on their spending list, and would find great joy in paying their farmer for their hard work, directly.
Danes are generally wealthy, but spend such little money on produce, I guess because of weak traditions and we’re nowadays just not used to ingredients being alive, fresh and exiciting.”

what is the dish you prepare most often at home? could you share one of your favourite go to “recipes” with us?
otto:

“I cook what I have, and I hate waste. I also never follow a recipe.
I mainly cook proper when I’m cooking for someone. I like to make many simple little things, some freshly baked bread, green things from the garden, something fried, things that a farmer talked about, whatever is exciting right now,
I am somehow always luckily around people that cook really really well, so I try to soak up a little bit of their knowledge.”

love how the vegetables that hang around the space have the weirdest shapes. every single one of them is unque, imperfect, different. funniest vegetable shape you encountered so far?
otto:

“That is the whole reason why the space is so empty - to put all the attention on the vegetables. They designed themselves in these quirky ways. Let’s pay attention.

Favorite vegetable shape of last season was the tromboncino squash.
Ida-Marie from Lindegaarden showed up with boxes of huge squash all looking like swans one day. I wasn’t expecting that.”

ufo zucchinis.

what does nature give to you? / how does it make you feel when spending time in nature? what do you love to give back to nature / what do you aim to give back to nature in return?
otto:

“Being in nature feels natural, but somehow also unnatural and foreign, I guess because I spend the vast majority of my life not in nature. Denmark is flat, open and very dominated by monoculture farmland, I’d love to plant thousands of trees and berrybushes over the course of my life.”

favourite nature childhood memory/ritual?
otto:

“My grandmas garden is so full of different flowers, trees and bushes that you can barely move through it. As a child however, the garden seemed like an endless rainforest, and it was effortless to run through and between the plants.
My ritual was probably just always being barefoot.”

what element do you feel most connected to ? (water, fire, earth, wind?) + why.
otto:

“I am not drawn to water like all my friends are.
I can stare at fire, like all my friends can.
I often find the wind annoying and very “in your face”.
I feel most connected to earth. I guess I just always have. Being a shy child I’d always walk around looking straight down at it.”

moments you appreciate most at grønne bønner? favourite memory of the first season?
“I has been a beautiful thing to experience the space finding itself in the beginning months. It was a bit awkward in the very beginning - it was all so new to me and to everyone else. Farmers and customers.
Once people slowly stopped commenting on the smell of linseed oil from the newly oiled wooden floors, and the place started finding a rhythm, a routine and a renomé, then every day felt more at ease.

My favorite memories has been meeting new people, that seem truly happy visiting the greengrocer for the first time, and seeing them bike away with lots of greens. That’s fantastic.”

what´s your childhood comfort food / something your grandma used to cook that takes you back in time and will stay in your heart forever?
otto:

“I would always make my grandma very happy and witty, when I complimented her “mormorkartofler”. When she cooked traditional frikadeller with salad and potatoes, I would genuinely be most excited about plain old big pale yellow potatoes when she had boiled them. I don’t think it was about the potatoes, in the end.

It’s more the comfort of someone cooking for you, not the dish. It’s a very sweet gesture.”

in your opinion and experience what are the different factors that determine the quality of vegetables / fruits / herbs ?
otto:

“I think I understood this best when I realized that mountain thyme in Greece prefers to grow in rocks. Soil dry as a bone, seemingly dead, hard as a rock, nessled between rocks under the hot burning Greek sun. You’d never think you could grow anything at all here.
This kind of environment produces some of the most fragrant and delicious thyme.
Why? I guess that’s how thyme prefers it, that’s probably how it came to be, It’s the most natural way for thyme to grow. Soil is wildly complex and full of complex life.
The closer we can get to the natural ways of growing our foods, listening to and understanding the nature of our soils and plants, the higher the quality will be.

Deep-tilling the soil, force-feeding plants with synthetic fertilizer and spraying away all natural life is the furthest from natural, and will get you the vegetable of the lowest quality, as I see it.”

one thing you recently learned? one thing you did for the first time recently?
otto:

“I’ve been reminded of the value of sleep and quiet. Hard to do, but so useful.
I read a whole book on clay houses, and I rarely find the patience to read.”

a personal ritual of yours that grounds you / brings you peace?
otto:

“I might not have one. But feeling physically useful and tending to a garden brings me peace of mind.”

if you were a vegetable which one would you be? / which one fits your personality?

otto:

“An apple maybe?”

what are you currently working on?

otto:

“I’m working on building a bunch of amateur furniture for GB with off-cuts of oak wood from legendary sawmill Bondeskovgaard.”

anything coming up / you are planning on doing at grønne bønner for the new season?
otto:

“GB has grown very fast. I think it’s always good to be slow, so I’ll try not to intervene too much, and see which direction GB will organically continue growing.”

who´s support are you most grateful for since you opened grønne bønner?
otto:

“Well my whole family and close friends helped me so much during the building phase, especially in maintaining my sanity, which I think I almost lost.
Since opening, I’m just thankful to anyone coming by and anyone spreading the word. Thankful to the farmers for trusting me and for allowing me to work with them.

where do you feel most at “home”?
otto:

“Good question. I don’t know. Couldn’t tell you a place - but I think when I’m with my siblings or hanging out with my best friend August whom I’ve grown up with.”

Thank you otto <3.

https://www.gronnebonner.dk
https://www.instagram.com/gronnebonner/?hl=en