Swedish Chef
Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman

Foto: Ann Chi Erikes

…..started his career in the restaurant business at the age of 10 at Rättvik’s Tourist Hotel, which was owned by his parents, where he helped his uncle in the kitchen by chopping parsley. He then went to the restaurant school in Linköping where he got his degree and apprenticed at the Freemason Hotel. In 1968 he was enticed to the United States by Kurt Eagle from Dala Floda who owned a Scandinavian-style restaurant called ”Viking Horn” in Los Angeles. A few years later he accepted the job as head chef for the Westwood, Los Angeles branch of the gigantic hotel chain Holiday Inn. ”When I left Sweden I intended to stay in the States for six months. After five years my mother called and asked if I had any clean underwear and warm socks”, as Kuprik laughingly relates. During his time at the Holiday Inn, he was invited to demonstrate Swedish cooking on a live TV show. He was skeptical, but was convinced by the show host who said he would only have to answer a few simple questions. ”But when I stood there in the studio and the camera zoomed in on me, I found I was alone on the stage. I got so nervous that when I opened my mouth to speak, instead of English, a totally incomprehensible combination of Swedish and English came out. It was an experience I wanted to forget as quickly as possible.” In 1976 he got his big break and he was hired as master chef at 20th Century Fox in their studio kitchen where he stayed for 7 years. ”Being a chef at a film studio is naturally not like being a chef in a normal kitchen. I bicycled around with the food on a tray. I served food at wrap-parties and to bands; we traveled by steam boat and served luxury food on ice sculptures. There was a lot of variety. No day was like the next. I made the food for the comedy series M.A.S.H., which wasn’t very easy. The hamburgers were supposed to look burned and the potatoes black. There was a war going on! The food for the series ”Dynasty” or, for example, the film ”9 to 5” were of a more luxurious character. No question of burning anything here; a more lavish presentation was required!” ”After about a year at 20th Century Fox, two men came up to me and said they had seen me on an old TV cooking show which they would like to use as material. I said, ‘If you want that garbage you can use it’. I was paid $80 for my trouble”, says Kuprik. That’s how the Swedish Chef in Jim Henson’s TV series The Muppets was conceived! When his mother was taken ill in 1983, Kuprik decided to return to Sweden where he has been active at various hotels in the Lake Siljan area, has run his own inn and entertained with his catering at many parties throughout the country.

This man is worth experiencing! ........ Hear him Sjunga! (Real Audio)

Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman
Box 224 795 23 Rättvik
Tel: +46 248 210 86, +46 70 314 16 26