report from the interior: More food adventures in small-town Iceland

I’m so accustomed to large supermarkets in the US that I’ve been known to complain when something I like becomes unavailable or there’s just not anything that appeals to me in the fruits & veg department. In small-town Iceland it’s an entirely different matter. The grocery store in Skagastrond is about a twentieth of the size of the smaller store in my home town, and shopping there is a serious challenge. There are some things you wouldn’t expect, like some health food items, balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard, though perhaps they are there to sell to the NES artists. There are usually 4 kinds of canned soups (all cream-based), modest amounts of packaged dry and frozen foods, and lots of candy and snacks. There’s no fresh fish or meat, just vacuum packed, as the local fisherman are prohibited from selling directly to the local people (everything goes to the big fish company). Dairy products and eggs are wonderful, but the fresh fruit and veggies are meager and often sit there rotting for a week. Yesterday I went and came home with a single small zucchini. Today I lucked out and there were 2 small heads of broccoli and a single bag of spinach that looked fresh. So I’ve been eating the same things over and over, and making a pot of soup every 3 or 4 days so I’ll have vegetables whenever they look decent.

A few days ago, Steinndor, one of the local founders of NES, made a dinner for us of traditional Icelandic foods. Top billing went to the wonderful lamb soup, and he got some of us to try his blood pudding, a sausage made from lamb’s blood that tasted a bit like meatloaf. One of our fellow residents is a chef from Australia, and he’s been learning as much as he can about traditional foods and foraging for local ingredients, so he made a fish soup and cod roe fritters with sorrel sauce. I’ve not seen gardens around, but Steinndor assured me that people are growing lots of vegetables in spite of the short growing season. I asked him about genetically modified foods and he said they were prohibited here, and in the Euro zone any GM foods must be clearly marked as such.

Today Olafur, another resident, came by the studio with hakarl, something I’ve been curious about but dreading as well. It’s made from Greenland shark, which has no kidneys and is permeated with urea as a result. It’s poisonous in its fresh form, so they stack big pieces of it in a large plastic box (they used to bury it in the ground) under some weight for several months, and the ureic acid and fat drain out, causing a chemical fermentation of the meat. Then they hang it up to dry for a couple of months outside. So you’re just dying to eat it now, right? Well, a couple of brave artists tried it (not me) and said it was rubbery and tasted strangely like fish and smelly cheese together. Yum! The smell lingered in the studio all day, and they say the taste stays with you for days… Chef Anthony Bourdain has called it “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing” he has ever eaten!