Iceland food

mmmm don´t you love good food?

What is exiting about Iceland food? Isn’t it to eat something new, something tasty and something different?

Well I can tell you now that not all the Icelandic old food is that tasty.

But the new fancy restaurants have fabulous cooks that surpass many of the world’s best’s cooks. Many of them attempt to use only Icelandic ingredients.

Iceland food and Icelandic eating habits are very different today from what it was 20-30 years ago.

Today everyone is so timeless that we try to have dinner preparation quick and easy.
So many are tempted to by something that is prepared and need only to be heated.

There were no take a ways 30 years ago. So as said before the food was a bit different then but it still lives with us and we eat it as often as we can that is the old Iceland food.

The Iceland food was in general based on fish and lamb, as well as owing much to Scandinavian and European influences.

In my home and most other Icelandic homes we manly ate haddock. We had it 5 times a week, every lunch, and we loved it.

It was boiled in hot water with little salt for 20 minutes. Served with potatoes, butter and ketchup. Sometimes we had finnan haddock or salted over night haddock.

When I was very little we used to have melted lamb fat instead of butter but then my father had heart problems and we stopped using the melded fat.

On Saturday we sometimes had Iceland food named bacalao (salted cod) with potatoes, turnips and melded lamb fat, this is one of the best.
When my mother and father went to Spain they used to bring bacalao with them that is how much they loved it.

Some Saturday when we did not have bacalao we had “Skyr”. Skyr is a milk product which is unique for Iceland. Skyr is made from skim milk and is almost fat-free. We ate it with blueberries, sugar, milk and cream.

For dinner we always had some kind of meat. Well it was almost always lamb but sometimes horse meat, but never chicken or beef it was too expensive.

One of Iceland food is eating horse meat, not everybody does it but it is quite common. It is pretty good a little bit like reindeer but lamb was on the top of the list. And we ate every part of the lamb except for the brain.

On Sunday we had lamb chops, lamb leg or the backboned. Sometimes we had lamb heads. They are quite delicious.

I always remember when my wife’s brother was once for dinner (she is Danish) and we had lamb heads.
She did not eat much, she found that they lambs were steering at her all the time and finally she gave up and left the table.

On regular days we had grounded meat burgers or meatballs with brown gravy. Boiled forcemeat with cabbage, turnips, potatoes and melted butter.
We also ate giblets. Heart and liver casserole was regularly on the menu.

And every autumn every household in Iceland took “slátur”. It is giblets similar to what the Scotties have and it is called haggis.
We take the stomachs fill it with mix of liver, oatmeal, lamb fat and spices.

Then we stitch the stomach together and freeze it or boil it for 2 hours for dinner. This one is called liver pudding but we also have another type were we use the blood and we call that blood pudding.
This is something we ate very regularly through the winter.

Goulash in brown gravy was one of my favorite, with potatoes and jam.

Our family had a big garden were we groove potatoes. The crop lasted us the whole year. My mother made the jam and pickles. Everything was more near the nature. Now we buy everything in boxes and I don’t grow potatoes any more.
In the 1970s one restaurant woke up an old tradition of Iceland food. That is how my grandfather and grandmother used to store food for many months without a freezer. Today we call it In the 1970s one restaurant Múlakaffi woke up an old tradition of Iceland food. That is how my grandfather and grandmother used to store food for many months without a freezer. Today we call it “Thorramatur”.
The Old Icelandic month “Þorri” begins with “Bóndadagur” or Man-of-the-House Day.
It is always around January 20th and last through February. This month almost everybody eats “Thorramat”.

Food that has been saved in sour whey to reserve the meat. We put in the whey lamb heads, liver and blood pudding, neck of the lamb, ram testicle and many more.

We also have smoked lamb meat, dried fish, flatbread, herring and the one we are most famous for is old shark meat. (here is a recipe for flatbread)
This has been processed for many months so it is eatable. Not everyone eats the shark meat it is a kind of manhood to eat it. It has a special odour.

Other traditions in Iceland food

January-Febuary Þorramatur (old Icelandic food)

February-Mars Shrove Monday, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday
Shrove Monday (we eat a lot of buns with cream and jelly). The children uses bunches to strike there parents and it depends on how many strikes they make how many buns they get or so goes the story.
Shrove Tuesday we eat so much of salted lamb and yellow beens as we can and maybe little more. That is called shrove Tuesday.
An old Ash Wednesday custom in Iceland (which does clearly not have its roots in Denmark) now a days we dress up in funny close and sing songs for anyone how wants to listen en give us candy. When I was little we useto hang little homemade bags on each other backs.

The beer day March first is Beer Day every year in Iceland. That's right, a whole day dedicated to the world's favorite beverage. This celebrated event began on March 1st, 1989, when a 75-year-long prohibition of beer was lifted. Pubs, restaurants, and clubs all around Reykjavik are especially wild this night. No word yet on plans to make March 2nd National Aspirin Day.

April We also celebrate The First Day of Summer in April and sometimes it is like middle of winter but the calendar says it is summer so be it. Some have the first barbecue of the summer at First day of summer.

Springtime At springtime we eat fish eggs with fish liver inside. We only had that one’s or twice every spring. My mother also had fish called “rauðmagi” red stomach or better known as male lump sucker. She use to pour over it vinegar mixture, I never liked it.

Easter The main Icelandic tradition in eating habits is eating a lot and eating a Easter chocolate egg which is filled with candy and Old Icelandic saying.

Summertime My grandfather was a grate sport fisherman and used to catch salmon in Icelandic rivers. He sometimes gave us new salmon to eat at summertime’s. One of our most favorite Iceland foods is barbecue. The Icelandic people barbecue a lot at summertime, nearly all households own a big barbecue grill.

Autumn Is the slaughter time, when the little lambs that now is relatively big come from highland and are slaughtered. We make our haggis and eat a lot of variety meat.

Þorláksmessa The day before Christmas we have tradition to eat rennet blue skate, which does not smell very well. That is why many eat this in restaurants now a days instead of making this at home and have a smelly house.

Desember 24th Many have ptarmigan which they hunt them self’s. They boil it, make a gravy with jam and sugary potatoes and vegetable. Now a day I always have gravlax for starter. It is Icelandic salmon which is marinated. And for dinner we have smoked pork and vegetables for the vegiterians.

Desember 25th Most Icelandic household have smoked lamb meat with white gravy, boiled potatoes and peas and my father use to make Christmas porridge, out of dry prunes, apples and apricot. We ate it with great delight and cream.

Fjallagrasasúpa
When my mother was little they use to make “Fjallagrasasúpu” Moss soup. Read more about Icelandic Moss and what it can do for you.

Are you planing on cooking fish? Take a look at some very good fish recipes

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