Today I want to talk about a few Icelandic foods we encountered on our recent trip to Reykjavik.
We ate some good seafood, which is what you’d expect, although they also have a lot of lamb on the island as well. We ate at one place more than once that served up a nice Icelandic “comfort food” style dish with mashed potatoes and fish mixed together, which wasn’t fancy, but simple and tasty.
But there were some other things that were more unique that are worth a quick mention here on the blog. Some we tried, but some we didn’t.
First, let’s look at a couple of things we didn’t get around to trying:
Pylsur – the name of the Icelandic hot dog. People swear these are great – they are made with pork, beer and lamb – as I said, lamb is quite popular on Iceland. These hot dogs apparently a rather stiff casing that gives a snap sound when you bite into them. The most famous place to get them in Reykjavik is this shack:
To clarify, it’s just the little tiny red shack in the foreground, not the building behind it. The name of this place is Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which translated to “Best hotdogs in town”. Or something like that. Although Chris and I would have been willing to try them, it was always raining at meal time — well, at least at our meal times. I took that photo in the late afternoon, when Chris was at his conference and I wasn’t hungry enough for a snack. Besides, it was freezing out when I took the photo – I didn’t see the appeal of sitting outside in that temperature to have a hot dog. Weather permitting, though, it would something to try if we’re ever in the neighborhood again.
Hákarl – fermented shark, which is supposed to be a very traditional Iceland food. It’s offered in “tasting” portions at every touristy restaurant in town. They say that the taste is so bad – er, strong – that you need to wash it down with a shot of Brennivín, a very-strong caraway-flavored schnapps. The drink is nicknamed “black death” according to the guidebooks, and its recommended as just the thing to kill the taste of the Hákarl.
Hmm. The idea that the taste could be so bad that you need a strong drink immediately afterwards to get rid of the taste wasn’t that appealing. I’m not sure even the Brennivín sounds appealing, either. But again, maybe we’ll try it next time.
But only maybe.
Now, for what we did try:
Skyr – Skyr is a soft-cheese made from pasteurized skimmed milk and a bacteria culture. Skyr looks a bit like yogurt, only much, much thicker. It’s almost the consistency of a soft-serve ice-cream, it’s that creamy and dense. They say almost all Icelanders each skyr everyday, for breakfast (which is when I had it), for mid-day snacks (which is also when I had it), or for other meals, when it’s made into sauces or desserts.
I enjoyed the Skyr I had every morning for breakfast at the hotel. Of course, part of what I enjoyed was the novelty of the little folding plastic spoon that came inside the lid on the Skyr container.
Harðfiskur, – essentially, these are pieces of dried fish; think of it as fish jerky if that makes it seem any better. This is another food Iceland residents are said to eat every day, usually with bread and butter. Chris and I tried this at a restaurant one night, as part of an appetizer plate with “tasting” portions of a few traditional Icelandic foods. How would I describe it? Chewy. Chewy. Chewy. With a very strong fish flavor and very strong fish odor. Definitely an acquired taste.
However, it must truly be a popular snack: in a store that was the equivalent of a 7-11, I saw there was a rack of a large variety of packages of this stuff, like you’d find racks of potato chips at 7-11. I didn’t buy any to try – once per trip was enough for me.
Puffin – a little seabird whose image is used on cutesy posters and stuffed toys as a symbol of Iceland. The meat is typically smoked and served in small pieces. It was also on that ‘tasting” appetizer plate. I don’t remember it that well, but I thought it tasted OK at the time, if nothing special. If it had been bad, I would have remembered that.
Then again, perhaps not. Also on that appetizer plate was some kind of traditional seaweed snack. I have blocked from my mind how this was prepared; I don’t remember it being terrible, but I actually don’t really remember it much at all. Let’s just say it wasn’t anything like Japanese-style seaweed (which I love).
However, it wasn’t that all the food in Iceland was bad; on the contrary, I did like many of the flavors of Iceland we sampled. But perhaps my favorite food memory from the trip was when I went into a little gift shop. The four young women who owned the store were in the middle of taste-testing bars of a new brand of locally made chocolates; they were considering whether or not they should stock it in their store. They invited me to join them in the tasting and give my opinion. It was all pretty good; I voted for the one that was chocolate with a licorice flavor, an unusually tasty combination. It turned out that in Icelandic, licorice is very popular; we had a fish dish at some restaurant that had a sauce flavored with licorice.
Anyway, at the store I chatted a little with the women and tasted local chocolate types. What’s not to like about Iceland foods when you get to do that. 😉
Clearly they realized that you are an internationally known food researcher, on a mission for you readers, with special attention to chocolate.
No gelato in iceland?
Thanks, Dovie. Yes, I’m sure my fame has now spread to Iceland. I am dedicated to trying these things for my readers … well, the chocolate things, at any rate…