here I'm gonna blog about Icelandic food.
Important parts of Icelandic food are fish, being in an area where fish is plentiful, lamb and dairy. Popular foods in Iceland include skyr and hangikjöt (smoked lamb). Þorramatur is the Icelandic national food.
Iceland offers a fine variety of all kinds of foods produced locally. The quality is excellent, in part because of a very clean environment.
Fish
Fish dishes in Iceland include Icelandic fish, caught in the waters of the North Atlantic, which have established a reputation for its superb quality and delicious taste world-wide. Fresh fish can be had all the year round, as can unsalted stockfish. Icelanders eat mostly haddock, plaice, halibut, herring and shrimp.
Meat
Perhaps the best is lamb meat, mostly because the sheep range freely in the mountains. Iceland has strict regulations relating to meat production and the use of hormones is strictly forbidden. Poultry farming is considerable in Iceland. The most common types of bird reared are chicken, duck and turkey. Certain species of wild birds are hunted, including geese.
Dairy products
Dairy products are very important to Icelanders. In fact, the average Icelander eats about 100 gallons of dairy produce in one year. A wide range of cheeses and other dairy products are made in Iceland. There are over 80 types of cheese made, some of which have won international awards. Skyr (which is something between yogurt and the German "Quark") and mysa (whey) are specialities that have been made in farms through the centuries in Iceland.
Fruits and vegetables
Even though Iceland is situated near the polar circle, many garden vegetables are grown outside, including cabbage and potatoes. Some other vegetables, fruits and flowers are grown in geothermally heated greenhouses.
Þorramatur
Main article: ÞorramaturIceland has a range of traditional foods, known as þorramatur, which are enjoyed seasonally from January to March. These traditional foods include smoked and salted lamb, singed sheep heads, dried fish, smoked and pickled salmon, cured shark and various other delicacies. Breads include laufabrauð (deep-fried paper-thin bread), kleinur (similar to doughnuts) and rye pancakes.
Shark
Iceland is rapidly becoming a popular destination for travelers, and with this growing tourist trade comes an inevitable slate of pricey new restaurants serving international cuisine.
Remember that this close to the Arctic Circle food options were limited for centuries, and some quite unusual dishes have evolved out of necessity. Mouldy shark is definitely one of the most challenging meals an intrepid traveler will ever have to face.
Origins and history
Until the latter half of the 20th century, Icelanders had no means of preserving food except salting, smoking it, soaking it in mysa (whey) or just going with nature and allowing it to rot for so long that the decomposition process comes to an end. Not surprisingly, traditional Icelandic food is rather strong-tasting!
Thorrablot is the Icelandic midwinter festival which takes place towards the end of January, the harshest of the winter months. It's a Thorrablot traditional to prepare foods which would have been eaten a hundred years ago, using only the original methods of preservation from the days when people had to do without refrigerators. It certainly makes for an interesting feast, if only so you can regale your friends with tales of how you survived a close encounter with a shark and came off better than the other guy.
and the most disgusting food I know of here are :
Svið - lambs head charred in the fire to singe off hair, then boiled and served either fresh or pickled. Can also be mashed up and soured in mysa to make a kind of pate.( my dad loves it)
Hrútspungur - ram's testicles pickled in mysa and moulded into little cakes( no comment)
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