On the bright side, we had plenty of time to spend our 2000 kronur (about £10) given to us by the airline, to purchase some food and tell you a little about what they eat in Iceland.
Here I am advertising dried haddock, which is essentially fish dried with a bit of salt. It's plain with a slight fishy flavour and crunchy texture. Icelanders take this on road trips to munch.
This drink is a Christmas specialty. At first we thought it was beer, but it's actually non-alcoholic orange (not apple as first thought) soft drink mixed with a malted beverage. It was invented apparently because alcohol was an expensive luxury and people wanted something festive. We both grew to like it.
Skyr, as previously mentioned is a 99.8% fat-free dairy product that seems more like thick yoghurt but is really a soft cheese. Yummy. It comes in plain, vanilla, and various fruit flavours. Pear, raspberry, strawberry, apricot and blueberry are nice flavours. Avoid the banana. We wondered why skyr wasn't imported further than Denmark, it is tasty and good for you!
For main meals, we mostly had fish dishes (similar to the Norwegian style), plain but filling. The big splash was obviously the lobster dinner... so yummy! The Icelandic lobster is smaller than your usual lobster, having come from the very cold waters off the coast. It was cooked in butter and garlic with lots of delicious vegetables, piquant vinaigrettes and a 'skyrronaise'. We also tried the Icelandic meat soup while we were at Geysir, it's a bit like minestrone soup with chunks of lamb.
Some traditional Icelandic dishes we didn't get to try... but were a bit reluctant to anyway... were fermented/rotted stingray 'skata' and shark, minke whale, and the Icelandic version of blood pudding! It's important to remember that Icelandic cuisine originated from the Vikings, who had to endure harsh winters with limited preserving techniques, and make the most of whatever food was available.
3 comments:
I have seen the food channel where they went and ate rotting shark meat. I want to try it to see how strong of a taste it is. A viking diet!
I overhead an Icelander telling a tourist to take along some liquorice to eat straight after... it's a very strong taste most people don't want lingering in their mouths apparently!
Interesting about the rotten shark. I think I will stick to Foo Yee ~ fermented bean curd cubes.
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