Fabienne Toback & Ellen Port

Food is more than what we eat. It is history, identity and a record of where we come from — and where we are going.

We are proud to welcome Fabienne Toback and Ellen Port as the final additions to the ArktiskMat 2026 speaker lineup.

Fabienne Toback spent four years working with her partners to create High on the Hog, the Peabody Award-winning Netflix series that traces African American foodways from a market in Benin to the American South. The series reached audiences far beyond those already interested in the history it carried.

At ArktiskMat, Fabienne will share her own journey from a Brooklyn kitchen to filmmaking, and the discovery that food can become a powerful way for a people to carry its history, culture and identity forward.

Joining her is Ellen Port, who brings the same lens to Nordic foodways and to the ways food creates connections between places and people. Among her projects is the Nordic in New York Dining Series, exploring Nordic cuisine and culture through the vibrant food scene of New York.

We were fortunate to collaborate with Ellen on Arctic in New York last year, where she contributed valuable insight, knowledge and connections within the New York food scene. We are delighted to continue that conversation at ArktiskMat 2026.

Together, Fabienne and Ellen will explore the thread that connects what a place has inherited with what it is becoming — how food carries stories across generations, borders and cultures.