Traditional Icelandic cuisine

Iceland is located “at the end of the world”, the country is rough and inhospitable and has only been inhabited by humans for almost 1,200 years. Summers are short and bright, winters are long and dark.

Iceland is the largest volcanic island in the world and lies just south of the Arctic Circle - so growing grain and vegetables was hardly possible in Iceland for a long time. There are now beautiful greenhouses powered by geothermal energy where tomatoes and bananas grow and which shine brightly in the landscape in winter, and there are now also grain fields - especially in the south of the island - but flour is more of a " "new" invention - previously only wealthy Icelanders could occasionally afford imported flour, sometimes flour was replaced by ground moss... also an experience.

The first settlers had to bring farm animals with them themselves - and you also had to bring enough food for the first animals (otherwise you would end up like Flóki Vilgerðarson, one of the first settlers, whose sheep all starved to death in the first winter on Iceland due to a lack of hay).

Even though the people in Iceland used everything that was at least edible, the original diet there was still very meager.

In the traditional cuisine of Iceland you mainly find turnips, cabbage, wild rhubarb, dock and various types of berries - as well as animal products, and everything that was edible was eaten. In addition to the meat of the sheep, people also ate (and eat) their feet, their testicles and their heads (the eyes are said to be particularly tasty). In Iceland, people eat shark, whale and seal meat, and what is not edible is made edible - like the famous Hákarl, the fermented Greenland shark. A specialty are also puffins and their eggs, which were essential to the survival of many people, especially in spring, when supplies were finally running low and nothing new was growing again.

Preserving meat and other foods was also important for survival in the long winters - by smoking, curing, drying, salting, pickling in sour milk and also fermenting. A classic Icelandic smoking process is also based on dried, pressed sheep dung with hay in between, which is unfortunately not permitted within the EU - which is why many Icelandic specialties such as hangikjöt (smoked lamb) are not allowed to be sold out of Iceland.

Classic Icelandic cuisine - for obvious reasons - hardly had any spices; instead, berries, herbs such as thyme and chervil, or salty seaweed were used.

Today's Icelandic tourist can experience and taste the original Icelandic cuisine first hand, especially when visiting a Þorrablot - if they dare. :-)

[Translated from here.]