Blogevent Smurálegg

A week all about spreads

Sausage and cheese have only recently found their way into Icelandic cuisine.

Liver sausage - here warm and fried

In the past, Icelanders mainly ate black pudding ( Blóðmör ) and liver sausage ( Lifrapylsa ), also liver pâté, which was an ideal way to use leftovers, so you could use practically everything from the sheep after slaughter. There was also rolled sausage ( rúllupylsa ), in which less good belly meat and other leftover meat were processed into a kind of "rolled roast".

Cheese has long been in Iceland - well, perhaps a little neglected. In recent years, however, there have been some small, very ambitious cheese producers in Iceland and you can increasingly find exciting Icelandic cheeses, such as the classic " Gullosta " (= "Golden Cheese"), a type of Camembert, then different types of blue cheese, various Hard cheese...

Selection of specialties at Ostabúðin in Skólavörðustígur in Reykjavík

Incidentally, Icelandic cheeses are predominantly made from cow's milk. The special taste of the cheese is attributed to the fact that Icelandic cows are fed almost exclusively on grass.

Cow over Akureyri

A relatively common spread was also...

... cabbage roe butter.

Berjahlaup

Jam, such as blueberry jam, berry jelly ( berjahlaup ) or various tomato jams, is usually eaten in Iceland on a piece of buttered bread with a slice of cheese on top.

Tomato jam with cinnamon and lime

I already have a few recipes for typical Icelandic spreads in the blog, and I would like to introduce a few others here to you later this week - here is an overview of some typical Icelandic spreads and toppings:

Liver sausage (Lifrapylsa)
Rolled sausage (Rúllupylsa)
Mýsingur (whey cheese)
Berry jelly (Berjahlaup)
Tomato jam with cinnamon and lime
Roe butter

[Translated from here.]