Icelandic Cuisine

[aliaseater]

At work, I recently fielded an odd request for two items, supposedly of Icelandic origin.

The customer was looking for:

Soured Lamb Testicles

Rotten Shark

I was able to track down a Norwegian deli owner who did not laugh when I told him what I wanted, but has yet to be able to come up with the goods.

Can anyone fill me in with more information about these items and if they are possibly available in the USA?

Thanks!

[Ben Hong]

"Icelandic cuisine" is a touch oxymoronic, no?

[FaustianBargain]

fascinating waitrose article on icelandic cuisine and you can find icelandic recipes here.

hrútspungur - ram's testicles pickled in whey and pressed into a cake

hákarl - rotten shark meat that has been buried for up to six months to ensure sufficient decomposition

svie - icelandic sheep head cheese. same process as with veal/calf or pig.

slátur - icelandic haggis. sorta. sheep leftovers cooked in its stomach.

skyr - a kind of cheese made from yoghurt and bacteria culture(i have tasted this. you'd think its bizzare, but it looks like caramel and it is simply brilliant)

brennivín - traditional icelandic brew. a sort of schnapps made from potatoes and flavoured with caraway.

a marine biologist friend of mine whose job takes him to arctic norway for six months in a year raves about whale steaks. whale steaks and whale pizzas are popular in iceland too, it seems.

edit: i hope bobby fisher likes icelandic fare. putrefied shark meat is a far cry from sushi, no?

Edited March 24, 2005 by FaustianBargain (log)

[rooftop1000]

I have actually eaten some of those things...have a bottle of Brennivan right on my mantle ...where it will stay forever sealed , noone should ever drink that it is evil

but hearing a waitress say ..." you call them Balls, no?" was a trip topper I have actually been to Iceland twice

http://www.icelandnaturally.com/index.shtml

tracey

[Nanna R]

fascinating waitrose article on icelandic cuisine and you can find icelandic recipes here.

hrútspungur - ram's testicles pickled in whey and pressed into a cake

hákarl - rotten shark meat that has been buried for up to six months to ensure sufficient decomposition

svie - icelandic sheep head cheese. same process as with veal/calf or pig.

slátur - icelandic haggis. sorta. sheep leftovers cooked in its stomach.

skyr - a kind of cheese made from yoghurt and bacteria culture(i have tasted this. you'd think its bizzare, but it looks like caramel and it is simply brilliant)

brennivín - traditional icelandic brew. a sort of schnapps made from potatoes and flavoured with caraway.

a marine biologist friend of mine whose job takes him to arctic norway for six months in a year raves about whale steaks. whale steaks and whale pizzas are popular in iceland too, it seems.

edit: i hope bobby fisher likes icelandic fare. putrefied shark meat is a far cry from sushi, no?

←

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).

[scordelia]

My husband lived in Iceland for a year. He remembers a lot of cheese, fish (of course) and horse, but he said the horse was not very good, just tough. Now, in Padua, we had great horse on polenta.

He says its similar to Swedish or Norwegian food, but not quite as good.

Sophie

[alexhills]

An Icelandic friend somehow managed to get some of the decomposed shark back through customs into the US, and I tried it. Uuuuuhhhh never again.... It took most of 24 hrs for me to get the taste of ammonia out of my mouth. Brenevin I actually quite like, although the effects are on the extreme side, shall we say. Allegedly the shark dilates your blood vessels, so you metabolize the shot of Brenevin you do afterwards more quickly. Like that needs any help....

[boulak]

There is an old saying that there is a thin line between fermentation and putrification.

[bourdain]

For a thorough exploration of the above dishes, see episode 3 of the upcoming "NO RESERVATIONS" on Travel Channel. Putrified shark...mmmmm.

[alexhills]

Apparently the putrified skate is even stronger than the shark. As I understand it, its the way the cartiledge decomposes that preserves the flesh. I heard a NPR slot on it a couple of years ago, they went to a barn in the middle of nowhere where this guy had some sharks hanging, they asked him why there were no flies there - Iceland in the summer, lots of flies - he said, 'the smell is too strong for them'... My Icelandic friend told me the shark-rotters tend to be kinda outcast bumpkins because they smell too bad themselves to be let into the towns. Apparently there are also films from the 20s and 30s of people from a particularly rural - and apparently inbred - backwater hunting some flightless bird in the 'traditional' manner - chasing after them and biting their heads off.... Oh dear.... Oh, and if that isn't bad enough, an Icelandic soccer player who used to play for Ipswich (English team) would provide a recipe for Puffin in each week's match program book. Ok, enough on that, most of the Icelanders I've met have been the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated people imaginable, so no more stereotyping.....

Edited April 8, 2005 by alexhills (log)

[Nanna R]

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.)

[alexhills]

I'm curious about Puffin - us English people tend to think of them as terribly cute birds and not food at all - but its a fairly dark game-like meat isn't it? I imagine it as a more potent version of duck. The shark my friend had was already fairly strong smelling, the skate does sound pretty serious. After my experience with hakarl I'm not sure I'm too ready to try it. I usually like VERY strong food though, maybe I should give it another chance...It's a traditional christmas food isn't it?? I didn't mean to suggest anyone was actually trying bite the heads off gannets any time recently, it is only hearsay, but my friend said it was in some kind of anthropological films made 70 or 80 years ago.... Are there cooks trying to combine the more traditional foods with modern technique - sort of Noveau Icelandic??

[FaustianBargain]

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.

What I had was a light brown and yes, smooth and soft. Not too crumbly, tho. Is there any other kind of cheese that I might have mistaken skyr for..?

[Nanna R]

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.

[scordelia]

I'm curious about Puffin - us English people tend to think of them as terribly cute birds and not food at all - but its a fairly dark game-like meat isn't it? I imagine it as a more potent version of duck. The shark my friend had was already fairly strong smelling, the skate does sound pretty serious. After my experience with hakarl I'm not sure I'm too ready to try it. I usually like VERY strong food though, maybe I should give it another chance...It's a traditional christmas food isn't it?? I didn't mean to suggest anyone was actually trying bite the heads off gannets any time recently, it is only hearsay, but my friend said it was in some kind of anthropological films made 70 or 80 years ago.... Are there cooks trying to combine the more traditional foods with modern technique - sort of Noveau Icelandic??

←

In the US and Canada, puffins are protected, so I do not know where you will get to try puffin.

For Nouveau Icelandic, you could try looking at the New Scandanavian Cooking thread in Food & Media. It's about a Norwegian chef who has a new show and cookbook, Kitchen of Light. I am sure that most recipes will be Norwegian and Swedish in origin but you might get some ideas.

It is hard to find Icelandic recipes. Because my husband lived there for a year, I once tried to track some Icelandic dishes down for him and had no luck. I have three Scandanavian cookbooks and none of them have an Iceland section. In fact, one the books actually says that Icelandic food was not good enough or interesting enough for the author to include.

Sophie

Edited April 9, 2005 by scordelia (log)

[srhcb]

The Spring 2001 issue of Gastronomica Magazine had an article on Icelandic cusine:

"WWFood, Iceland by Steingrimur Sigurgeirsson, The culinary traditions and comments on contemporary Iceland cuisine."

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=30910

[Nanna R]

I'm curious about Puffin - us English people tend to think of them as terribly cute birds and not food at all - but its a fairly dark game-like meat isn't it? I imagine it as a more potent version of duck. The shark my friend had was already fairly strong smelling, the skate does sound pretty serious. After my experience with hakarl I'm not sure I'm too ready to try it. I usually like VERY strong food though, maybe I should give it another chance...It's a traditional christmas food isn't it?? I didn't mean to suggest anyone was actually trying bite the heads off gannets any time recently, it is only hearsay, but my friend said it was in some kind of anthropological films made 70 or 80 years ago.... Are there cooks trying to combine the more traditional foods with modern technique - sort of Noveau Icelandic??

←

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).

[FaustianBargain]

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 ...

A Faroese friend of mine absolutely loves puffin. Cute or not, it is food. It is the issue of the Grind that is a tad upsetting to me. Does Iceland have any such traditions?

Edited April 9, 2005 by FaustianBargain (log)

[rooftop1000]

In the US and Canada, puffins are protected, so I do not know where you will get to try puffin.

For Nouveau Icelandic, you could try looking at the New Scandanavian Cooking thread in Food & Media. It's about a Norwegian chef who has a new show and cookbook, Kitchen of Light. I am sure that most recipes will be Norwegian and Swedish in origin but you might get some ideas.

It is hard to find Icelandic recipes. Because my husband lived there for a year, I once tried to track some Icelandic dishes down for him and had no luck. I have three Scandanavian cookbooks and none of them have an Iceland section. In fact, one the books actually says that Icelandic food was not good enough or interesting enough for the author to include.

Sophie

←

I found this recipe site a few rears ago after one of my trips http://www.isholf.is/gullis/jo/index.htm

you guys are driving me nuts all I can think about now is Icelandic butter really great bread and the lobster soup at Ari i Oggi

ok I did eat all the weird stuff too but that butter is to die for I have even had some shipped here

tracey

[Nanna R]

A Faroese friend of mine absolutely loves puffin. Cute or not, it is food. It is the issue of the Grind that is a tad upsetting to me. Does Iceland have any such traditions?

←

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.

[FaustianBargain]

deleted

Edited April 10, 2005 by FaustianBargain (log)