Noma’s Sweet Shrimp from Smögen, Frozen Red Currant Juice

THE theme of this year’s MAD Symposium, held in a red circus tent in Copenhagen, was guts — this was interpreted in a variety of ways from intestines to raw courage by the speakers.

The symposium was launched on a stage that represented a Danish forest woodland scene — trees and logs and a carpet of grass and wild plants. A whole carcass of a Gloucester Old Spot pig, dangled by the back legs from a chain in the centre of the stage, gave us a hint that this year’s symposium was going to be a visceral two days of raw emotions and painful honesty.

I was almost the only white-haired woman there, that is apart from Diana Kennedy, the feisty 90-year-old, cookbook author and noted environmentalist who gave a spirited talk about her life collecting and documenting recipes around remote villages in Mexico for 60 years.