Ja­maican chef Rameish Des­ouza re­cent­ly trav­elled to Åle­sund, Nor­way, to take part in the Nor­we­gian Seafood Coun­cil’s in­ter­na­tion­al salt­fish show­case. He joined five oth­er chefs from key salt­fish mar­kets—in­clud­ing Por­tu­gal, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Brazil, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go, and Mex­i­co—each bring­ing their own unique culi­nary styles and cul­tur­al in­flu­ences to the ex­pe­ri­ence.

Des­ouza was the youngest chef se­lect­ed, a dis­tinc­tion that sur­prised many of his peers on the trip. At just 23 years old, his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the event not on­ly show­cased his culi­nary skills but al­so his abil­i­ty to stand out among sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als in the in­dus­try.

“The mo­ment every­one found out I’m 23, every­one was sur­prised,” he shared.

“They thought I was in my late 20s or ear­ly 30s judg­ing by how I car­ry my­self and how fo­cused I am about my ca­reer. But it was a good feel­ing know­ing that my tal­ent brought me to cook amongst old­er chefs,” he added.

The trip, which fol­lowed a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence for Ja­maican jour­nal­ists last year, gave Des­ouza an im­mer­sive look at Nor­way’s seafood his­to­ry—from fish fac­to­ries to fjords. Along­side the scenic back­drops of Geiranger­fjor­den, the chefs toured a salt­fish fa­cil­i­ty, ex­pe­ri­enced lo­cal din­ing, vis­it­ed a Nor­we­gian fish­eries mu­se­um, and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a culi­nary show­case where each chef pre­sent­ed their salt­fish dish.

For Des­ouza, the plan was sim­ple: cook Ja­maica’s beloved ac­k­ee and salt­fish. But his jour­ney took an un­ex­pect­ed turn when air­port se­cu­ri­ty con­fis­cat­ed the canned ac­k­ee he was tak­ing to Nor­way.

“I brought canned ac­k­ee in my car­ry-on bag and they were thrown away at the check­point,” he re­called.

“Dur­ing my lay­overs in At­lanta and Am­s­ter­dam, I searched hop­ing to find a re­place­ment, but had no luck. When I ar­rived in Åle­sund, I knew I had to switch gears,” he said.

Faced with a chal­lenge, Des­ouza im­pro­vised. He leaned on his cre­ativ­i­ty and his roots, craft­ing a co­conut fried fes­ti­val with cab­bage and salt­fish, and a salt­fish frit­ter with added cream cheese.

The piv­ot paid off—his dish­es earned some of the most en­thu­si­as­tic re­spons­es from the 50-plus guests.

“Every­thing turned out per­fect in the end, my food got some of the most pos­i­tive feed­back out of all the coun­tries that were rep­re­sent­ed,” he said. “One woman told me my dish re­mind­ed her of her grand­moth­er’s cook­ing. That meant every­thing to me,” he said.

Be­yond the show­case, Des­ouza had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to delve deep­er in­to Nor­we­gian cul­ture.

“The first thing that sur­prised me is that in Nor­way and most oth­er coun­tries, they don’t re­fer to it as salt­fish,” he ex­plained. “There are dif­fer­ent types of salt­ed ba­calao fish. The salt­ed ba­calao dis­trib­uted to Ja­maica is saithe, and we Ja­maicans just call it salt­fish. But in Nor­way, it’s re­ferred to as saithe ba­calao.”

These cul­tur­al in­sights, along with the hands-on culi­nary ex­pe­ri­ence, gave Des­ouza a fresh per­spec­tive on both Nor­we­gian cul­ture and how seafood is pre­pared.

“The way cul­ture shapes the prepa­ra­tion and flavours re­al­ly opened my eyes,” he said. “Just by tast­ing the food, I learned dif­fer­ent ways of sea­son­ing and flavour­ing dish­es—from how to plate them to the over­all pre­sen­ta­tion. I’ll def­i­nite­ly be in­cor­po­rat­ing new tech­niques I learned on this trip in­to my kitchen.”

Though his jour­ney had its chal­lenges, it end­ed as a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and a reaf­firmed com­mit­ment to his roots.

“It felt like a dream come true to fi­nal­ly be rep­re­sent­ing my coun­try,” he said. “From ear­ly in my ca­reer I’ve al­ways said in my videos, ‘mi do this fi mi coun­try,’ and I look for­ward to do­ing it again in more cook-offs and events in the fu­ture,” he added.

Des­ouza’s trip to Nor­way, made pos­si­ble by the Nor­we­gian Seafood Coun­cil through its salt­fish from Nor­way and Seafood from Nor­way brands, wasn’t just about food—it was about learn­ing, ex­per­i­ment­ing, and con­nect­ing with oth­ers over a shared love for culi­nary tra­di­tions.