Nanna R

I could probably find them for you, in Iceland everybody knows everyone else.

Sure. If you scroll quite a bit down my article on the early history of Icelandic cuisine that I linked to, there is a section called Curds and Whey that discusses this. On the farm where I grew up, we had a couple of big barrels of fermented whey in the larder; food was stored in the whey and it was also used as a beverage and for cooking. Fermented whey is called sýra; when diluted with water, it is called sýrublanda or just blanda, same as in Shetland. I can still recall how refreshing a drink of ice-cold sýra could be on a hot summer day. (Or what passes for a hot summer day in Iceland.)

Have I eaten skyr ... asking an Icelander that is like asking an Italian if he has eaten pasta. Yes, about five times a week ever since I was a few months old. It is not fermented, it is soured. Modern versions are very mild-tasting and often flavored with fruit (some examples here) and here. The version I knew in my childhood was admittedly rather different, thicker and with a much stronger sour taste; we usually spooned lots of sugar over it. In the old days, it was even more sour, as it was kept in barrels for months, or maybe a whole year. Skyr is much like a fresh cheese but virtually fat-free. I use it quite a lot in cooking but it is usually eaten straight from the container, either as breakfast, midday snack or as dessert.

Well, I’m Icelandic and have written a couple of book (in English) on traditional and modern Icelandic food. Despite that, I haven’t really written much about putrefied shark (which isn´t actually common everyday food, despite evil rumours). Raw puffin certainly isn’t traditional, although you might get it at a couple of trendy restaurants. I’m not sure which fermented dairy products you are referring to – we do have a few blue cheeses that are imitations of Danish or French cheeses, but not much else. And then there is skyr, which used to be soured (not fermented). Todays mild versions are pretty much loved by everyone, Icelanders and foreigners alike, and are currently being test-marketed in some American stores. Yes, that damned putrefied shark. It has probably done more to damage the reputation of Icelandic cuisine than any other single foodstuff ever has to any cuisine. And still my countrymen stubbornly continue to offer the stuff to innocent tourists. Why, I´ve never been able to discover. It is mostly served at special feasts during the month of Thorri (you can read about it here.) Would probably be almost forgotten by now it it hadn’t been resurrected a few decades ago. And the majority of younger Icelanders (and many older ones as well) are just as disgusted as most foreigners. Actually, I rather like the stuff myself but only about once a year. I do, on the other hand, love most of the other traditional stuff mentioned in the Guardian article. Much of it can actually be very good (ok, I was brought up on the stuff but Icelandic chefs have been doing great things with traditional dishes and ingredients in recent years). None of it can be considered traditional everyday fare. Sure, traditional Icelandic fare can be fairly bland, as spices were sparingly used, but certainly not tasteless. It is rather similar to (and heavily influenced by) traditional Danish food, except we eat lamb instead of pork. And Icelandic lamb is very good. So is the fish. Modern Icelandic home cooking is fairly international in character – too international, I sometimes feel, although I’m probably responsible myself for a small share of that development. Here is an article on modern and traditional Icelandic food and here is one on the early history of Icelandic cuisine.

I've got the books already. But you know, he might actually be of some use at El Bulli, as he is a chemistry graduate student. And quite interested in cooking, so he isn't totally useless, although dishwashing and potato scrubbing are definitely not his strongest fields. There are a few cookbooks he plans to take with him when (if) he eventually leaves home - we'll see about that ...

I've added 38 titles in recent months, which brings my total up to - let me see - 1424: Joys of Nepalese Cooking Culinaria Greece My Mother's Bolivian Kitchen St. Kitts and Nevis Independence Cookbook Shunju New Japanese Cuisine 50 Great Curries of India Cocktails & Recipes - Réunion Island Food from the Arab World Kopiaste The Lebanese Kitchen Das Neue Sacher Kochbuch The Cuisine of Cambodia The Best of Canary Islands Cookery Piemonte in bocca Lítil bók um lambakjöt Jólagóðgæti Politikens fiskekogebog Hr. Jensens kogebog Umoderne mad Sødt Nannas salater Familiemad Sweetbreads, Liver and Kidney Casa Moro Brilliant Barbecues The Pedant in the Kitchen The Pheasant Cook An Exaltation of Soups Cupboard Love Are You Really Going to Eat That? Simply Seaweed Extreme Cuisine Recipes for Disasters Les Halles Cookbook Gordon Ramsay Makes it Easy Marie Claire Kitchen The Dinner Lady The Berry Bible I'm definitely going to need to get rid of my son very soon. He is taking up too much valuable space I could use for books.

Then you should probably give the smoked lamb a miss too, as much of it is smoked with dried sheep dung. Much better than the milder versions smoked with birch ... Actually, dried sheep dung and peat were almost the only cooking fuel available in Iceland for many centuries, as much of the country was deforestated shortly after the Settlement. At the farm I grew up on, it was still used for some cooking in the 1960s, and is still used for smoking lamb and other stuff. Although back then, smoking was used for preserving as well as flavoring the meat so after the initial smoking period, it was hung from the rafters high above the fire and taken down months later, almost black from the sooty smoke, much drier than the stuff you can buy in the shops now, and absolutely delicious. The same with the smoked salmon and trout; it used to be drier and tastier than the (rather good) stuff you can buy now.

Just in case anyone wants to know more about the Icelandic midwinter feast tradition, here is an excerpt from my book Icelandic Food and Cookery: "Thorri Feasts Þorrablót According to the old Icelandic calendar, the month of Thorri (Þorri) begins on a Friday between 19th and 25th January. Thorri may be a distortion of the name of the old thunder god, Thor (Þórr), but it has come to mean a personification of the Winter King – often portrayed as an old, harsh man that lays a blanket of snow and ice over the whole country and is very reluctant to let go of his “ice fetters.” Even though Thorri feasts were held at midwinter in pagan times, there is really nothing that connects them to the present day feasts of the same name. They are a twentieth century phenomenon, although there were a few instances in the nineteenth century when small groups of people gathered for a midwinter feast they called Thorrablót. The present-day catered Thorrablót is partly an invention of a Reykjavík restaurant owner in the 1950s – he thought there might be a market for traditional and disappearing Icelandic food that had never been served at restaurants before. Thorrablót are now held in almost every town and community in Iceland and clubs, workplaces and others arrange their own feast, so many people end up going to several of these during the month of Thorri. They may even reach into the next month, Góa, in which case they are usually called Góugleði (Góa’s Feast). Most Thorrablóts are catered by restaurants but in a few locations, people still bring their own Thorri food in the customary specially made deep wooden trays." And yes, I suppose much of the stuff is pretty gross. But I like it anyway.

I’ve written two huge cookbooks (6-700 pages). They are in Icelandic. Which means no one outside Iceland can read them and I can safely boast about how great they are … Well, they are bestsellers here. I’ve also written two smaller books in English about Icelandic food. One was published in the US. I actually had no trouble getting that one published – I wrote to the publisher, asked if they were interested in an Icelandic cookbook, they said they were, I wrote a sample chapter and sent them, and we had a deal. Although having a recommendation from Alan Davidson (who suggested the book to me in the first place) probably didn’t hurt. I'm currently working on a couple of cookbooks.

No - that is, we used to hunt whales (and a few minke whales are killed each year) but there is no tradition for mass roundup and slaughter of whales like in the Faroe Islands. Whale meat can be found in some shops and on the menu of a few restaurants but it isn't all that popular. I lost the taste for it for many years after eating it several times a week for a whole winter, back when I was a penniless student and single mother and couldn't afford any other meat (except guillemot or puffin on Sundays). Whale meat is rather more expensive now, though.

Sure, puffin is cute but when you've got about ten millions of them ... The meat is dark and gamy, perhaps with a slightly fishy taste but not as strong as you would think, given the bird's diet. My ex-MIL, who came from the Westmann Islands, where they eat a LOT of puffin, told me they should never be cooked for less than three hours. I prefer to sauté or grill the breast fillets for a couple of minutes ... The skate is serious. About half the population loves it - the stronger tasting and smelling, the better (it should bring tears to your eyes, some say), the other half hates it. It is traditionally eaten on St. Thorlak´s Day (Dec. 23rd) and when I invite people to my annual St. Thorlak's party I usually tell them "there will be no skate - and if you plan to attend a skate party, please do so after coming to my house, I don't want the smell". Several Icelandic chefs have been experimenting with traditional Icelandic food, trying to develop modern versions. For instance, a couple of years ago, I went to a gala diner catered by members of the National Culinary Team where one of the dishes was made from lamb's testicles. Some of them have been doing weird and wonderful things with skyr. Other things, such as smoked lamb, whale, game birds, Iceland moss and more are being experimented with. My books (Icelandic Food and Cookery and Cool Cuisine) both contain several modern recipes (or modern versions of older recipes) in addition to the traditional recipes. One of them was published in the US and should be available on amazon.com if anyone is interested in Icelandic recipes (including puffin recipes). I've read Steingrímur Sigurgeirsson's article in Gastronomica but I don't agree with everything he says there - after all, it is well known here that he dislikes the old Icelandic food and doesn't eat it himself, whereas I was brought up on the stuff and it was on the table daily at my home. (Besides, he doesn't know what he's talking about - anyone who says you use wheat meal for blóðmör and lifrarpylsa certainly never made the stuff himself - any good housewife knows you use rye flour).

Well, if it was supposed to be eaten on its own with a spoon, it could have been flavored skyr - there is one manufacturer who makes a caramel- and nut-flavored skyr. If it tasted a bit like dulce de leche and was thick but still spreadable, it was probably mysingur, a soft whey cheese, usually eaten with bread or crackers. Flavored skyr is very popular here and some types are quite good but I always prefer plain old natural skyr, which is quite similar to Greek yoghurt - you can't buy that here so I usually substitute skyr in recipes that call for it, with good results. Skyr tzatziki is very popular in my family.

Mmmm ... puffin ... The magazine I write for will feature a puffin party in an upcoming issue. However, I'm both rural (grew up on a remote farm in Northern Iceland) and inbred (all my grandparents come from the same family) and I can safely say I've never bitten the head off anyone or anything. Or seen it done. Or heard of it ... no, that's not quite true but it isn't traditional. About the shark curers being outcast because of the smell - well, it is possible some of them don't smell too nice but the shark-curing place at Bjarnarhöfn, for instance, is a popular tourist attraction and the smell doesn't scare people off. Actually, the smell of hákarl isn't all that strong. The smell of putrified skate, on the other hand, is very strong and in many homes it is cooked outdoors or in the garage because people don't want the smell to penetrate the whole house. (It usually does anyway when the skate is brought to the table.)

I was in St. Petersburg over Easter and dined at the Old Custom House on Vasilievsky Island with a Russian and an Icelander who has lived in the city for many years. Both proclaimed it their favorite restaurant. The food was very good, European/French (except the very Russian caviar and blini). Located in an 18th century vaulted cellar, quite roomy and cozy. Probably rather expensive but my menu did not have any prices. I had lunch at Demidov on 14 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki - salad and a very good soup. I understand they plce an emphasis on authenticity and prepare all their dishes from very old Russian recipes. I also had a light lunch at Valhall on Nevsky Prospekt - supposedly a mixture of Russian and Scandinavian cooking but I didn't notice a great deal of Scandinavian influence there, although there were some Viking-style decorations. The soup was good, though; the vodka even better. I had a quick meal at Propaganda on 40 Nabereznaya Reki - Soviet-themed restaurant with a mixture of Russian and international cooking. I ordered a Georgian tabaka chicken, which was quite OK but I've had better. For inexpensive and quick Russian food, my hosts recommended the chain Yolki Palki, which has recently opened its first restaurant on Nevsky Prospect, but I didn't have time to go there.

I don't know what kind of caramel you are used to but I've been eating skyr more or less daily all my life and I can assure you it looks nothing like any caramel I'm familiar with. Natural skyr is pristine white, smooth and soft (although the skyr I remember from my childhood was thick, crumbly and far more sour than the one sold in shops here today). But yes, it is brilliant. As for the original question, my suggestion would be to try to contact the closest Icelandic expat association (try the Icelandic embassy for adresses), they might possibly have some left over hákarl or hrútspungar from their latest Thorrablót celebration (the Thorrablót season finished recently). I don't know of any other possible source (although I heard last Thorri that there was a scarcity of lamb's testicles as they were being exported to the US in quantities - I don't know what for, though). The shark meat is not actually buried these days, it is placed in plastic tubs to ferment for a while, then hung to dry. The taste is not unlike some very strong types of cheese and in fact, some foreigners think they are eating cheese when they taste hákarl for the first time. Svið is not head cheese (that is called sviðasulta), but the whole (or halved) sheep's head, singed and boiled. Slátur is not "sheep leftovers" but a mixture of lamb's blood, lamb suet, rye flour and oats (sometimes raisins as well9, cooked in pouches made out of the stomach. More akin to blood pudding than haggis. Lifrarpylsa is more haggis-like, containing liver and often kidneys as well, in addition to suet, rye flour and oats. I've never ever heard of whale pizza (interesting idea, though) but whale meat is eaten here. Or was, it is rather rare these days. I wouldn't actually say the term Icelandic cusine is an oxymoron, although the traditional cuisine is fairly simple and some think it boring. In fact, I've written two books (in English) on traditional Icelandic cuisine, which is very much influenced by Danish/Scandinavian cooking, substituting local ingredients when appropriate (lamb instead of pork, for instance).

My cookbooks are organized, sort of. Meaning that when I need a title, I can usually find it without looking too hard. I've a couple of bookcases where the books are organized by country of origin (going around the world: Iceland, Faroe Islands, Norway ... ending with books from Ecuador). In other cases, books are organized by cuisine, ingredient, author, language, etc. I also keep a part of my collection at work because I need the books there. Of course I also need them at home, so I'm lugging cookbooks back and forth all the time.

I got Food and Drink in America from Amazon yesterday. Should I count both volumes, I wonder? If I do, that will bring the total up to 1,386. I'm trying to think of ways to get my son to move out of the house. I really need his room for my books ...

Ripened or fermented skate is one of the national dishes of Iceland. Personally I don't care for it but true fans say it should smell so strongly that you almost gag on the smell. It is frequently cooked on a small stove in the garage because people don't want the stench to overwhelm the house. You can read about it here: http://www.visitreykjavik.is/displayer.asp?cat_id=363 and there are some more photos here (text in Icelandic) http://jol.ismennt.is/thorlaksmessa-naust.htm

You know, there is a good reason why one Icelandic clothing manufacturer advertises: "There is one place in Iceland where you absolutely must wear warm clothes. That place is called Outside." There aren´t really any outdoor cafes here, although many cafes will have tables outside in summer whenever the weather permits, but it isn't all that often you can eat outside in the evening. If the weather is obliging, the Hressingarskálinn (Hressó) garden downtown is probably a good bet, Vegamót also. I don't recommend eating inside at either place - too smoke-filled, at least for me. Hornið is a nice, child-friendly restaurant - my daughter often takes her family there - and the food is ok. No outdoor tables, though.