Viking Quest

Pulling into a small town in the Mississippi Delta two hours from any major city after covering long ribbons of dark highway, all I can think is, Here? But on the main street of Greenwood (pop. 17,000), I peer through a glass storefront and feel the happy glow of expectation you get walking into a kitchen party in full swing. A dozen people are clinking wine glasses and forking up something saucy from big platters. A wall of fierce stainless steel gleams in the background.

It’s a typical after-party following a class at the Viking Cooking School, run by the made-in-the-USA company that, more than 20 years ago, started the industrial-appliance revolution for home kitchens. “Your cooking rivals that of the finest restaurants. So should your range,” read the original Viking ads. The story goes that founder and Greenwood resident Fred E. Carl Jr. designed the first-generation stainless behemoth for his wife.

Today, as countless other companies hawk hulking appliances, Viking dishes up the idea of Southern hospitality from its Greenwood seat. Originally, Viking started bringing dealers here not only to try the products and see how they were made but to learn about Viking company culture, with a small-town Americana twist. In the end, it has rebranded this industrial town – in the heart of the poorest state in America, on the uneasy perimeter of historic civil-rights unrest – as part of that tasty vision and put Greenwood, an unlikely candidate, on the culinary vacation map. “We’re not just an equipment company; we’re a lifestyle company,” insists LeAnne Gault, who handles PR for Viking, without a soupçon of irony over a lunch of crawfish salad in one of the quaint Prohibition-era booths at the company-owned Giardina’s restaurant.

The Viking empire includes not only the Alluvian hotel and school in Greenwood but also more than a dozen cooking schools across the U.S. and a culinary vacation program led by top chefs around the world. Yes, the requisite boutique (or, as they say, “bow-tique”) hotel bowl of crisp green apples sits on the reception desk of the Alluvian, and expensive-smelling candles burn in its spa. But my first cooking class is more down-home Paula Deen than fancy-pants Daniel Boulud.

The class theme, somewhat bizarrely, is Japanese Steakhouse, which turns out to showcase the Viking range’s capabilities once you get past the culinary cultural dissonance. The wok fires up way hotter than on my own gas stove. Our fried rice doesn’t stick and turns out on the platter restaurant glossy. And when we ratchet up the Viking’s iron grill to sear steak, teppanyaki-style, I char some admirable diamonds on the meat and can taste the carbony goodness when we tuck into the sliced steak later. For me, though, the big excitement comes from learning to flambé: a shrimp sauté is the test dish, and although the flames die in the wok as one of my classmates’ courage flails, I build the courage to put match to sake myself.

The cooking tips are low fuss: I look the other way when we’re taught to pre-fry an omelette that I later chop up and add to the finished dish rather than scrambling the egg right into the frying rice. But my classmates, among them a knot of Memphis gals celebrating a 40th birthday and two local ladies who have been friends for more than 30 years, don’t seem to care a whit about this lapse in authenticity, especially after a few glasses of wine.

The next day, the incongruity of it all hits me as I make the full Viking rounds. On the factory tour that’s available to cooking-school guests, much is cutting edge, including a Toyota-like just-in-time manufacturing system that includes the ability to glaze ranges in 23 colours (from cotton white to mint julep green!). The hardware is certainly contemporary, but the concept is oddly retro: a clear attempt to look back to food that tastes good and is fun and easy to make and share. While brands like Sub-Zero started as commercial ranges and later trickled into civilian kitchens, Viking was always meant for the home cook. Even though I live in a big city, I end up feeling like a bit of a rube here in Greenwood.

In the end, my visit left a good taste in my mouth. As I headed north to Memphis, I recalled the Viking creed. Bill Crump, a rangy guy with watery blue eyes and a long ruddy face who acts as a government liaison for all things Viking, had driven me around town in his truck. His left wrist was draped on the steering wheel; his right hand pointed out this pretty block of vintage storefronts, that freshly restored heritage building. At one time, Greenwood was the cotton capital of the world, he reminded me, as we stood in front of the former cotton merchant buildings that are now the company’s head offices. I watched the slow roll of the Yazoo, the river that triangulates with the Mississippi to form the delta, while behind me a freshly repainted brick-wall billboard asserted, “Drink Coca-Cola 5 Cents.” “You visit Greenwood, and then an appliance becomes more than a cold piece of stainless steel,” Crump drawled. “It has a heart.”

Cooking Classy

CuisinArt Resort
The small-appliance maker runs a resort in Anguilla where guests can visit the property’s hydroponic farm (run by Canadian Howard Resh) and take cooking classes using the garden-fresh herbs and produce – a soft sell that subtly encourages healthy home cooking with Cuisinart food processors, perhaps?
cuisinartresort.com

Calphalon Culinary Center
Much like Viking, Calphalon started as a family company in the 1960s to become one of the world’s top cookware brands.The Calphalon Culinary Center, with locations in Toronto and Chicago, focuses on both mastering basic kitchen skills and preparing exotic meals.
calphalonculinarycenter.com

Aga Factory
Cast iron was industrialized 300 years ago at Coalbrookdale Foundry in Shropshire, England, where the cult stove is still manufactured today. Aga fanatics can tour the factory and stay at the Eckington Manor Cookery School, which offers courses on cooking with the radiant-heat range.
eckingtonmanor.co.uk, aga-ranges.com

Check out more Branded Vacations: Volkswagen’s automotive playground and Kohler’s Waters Spa.

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