Icelandic food

Humarhúsið, Höfn Hornafirði,

Humarhúsið, Höfn Hornafirði,

Our town Höfn is known as the lobster town. Once a year we have a festival called the Lobster Festival, the locals cook lobster soup and you can go to houses for free and have a taste. Then the local restaurant Ósinn attempts every year to do the biggest lobster baguette in the world and everyone can have a taste of that as well.

Seafood defines our town, and our biggest industry in Höfn is the fish factory called Skinney but they own seven boats and a lot of people in Höfn are working there or are seamen. There are some great restaurants in Höfn, which all sell some lobster dishes, so you could say our town is defined by lobster. We have a little shop by the harbor called Hafnarbúðin where you can get the best junk food in our little town. I would highly suggest going there when you are hungover; it’s kind of a tradition to go there the next morning for the peers in our town.

torramaturOnce a year we have something called Þorri and at that time of year everybody gets together and eats food that was traditionally eaten many years ago, like rotten shark, sour ram balls and some unpleasant stuff like that. Þorramatur (Þorra food) is often called sourfood and known as rotten food, since it takes some months until it’s ready and the longer you had it waiting, the healthier it becomes and is considered better to taste. For example we eat Slátur, which is made out of sheep liver and blood. We also eat Svið, (sheep heads). The wool is burned and peeled of the head, and then we split the head in half, remove the brain and cook the head.

In Iceland we celebrate Christmas and a big part of Christmas for us is eating a lot of really good food. Traditional Icelandic Christmas food would be pig or ptarmigan. The day before Christmas we have a day called Þorláksmessa and for many families in Iceland there is a tradition to go and eat skate, which is a really smelly fish. During Christmas we also bake a lot of cookies and Laufabrauð, which is a traditional Icelandic bread – it’s fried on a pan with a lot of butter and we carve patterns on them (they sort of look like hard pancakes).

skyrWe get all of our milk from our Icelandic cows and produce almost all of our dairy products that are sold in the local market from Icelandic materials. One of our most famous dairy products in Iceland is Skyr witch is almost like some kind of a thick creamy yogurt and is very healthy and popular amongst people traveling to Iceland. Close to Höfn we have one of the biggest cow farms in all of Iceland holds around 115 cows and is expanding up to 230 cows. We produce all of our cheese and have a lot of selection from moldy cheeses.

In Iceland there are a lot of sheep and one of the most popular meals in the common Icelandic household is to eat lamb meat, traditionally with potatoes and gravy. We also eat pigs, cows and sometimes horses and reindeer – and of course fish.
In Iceland it is recommended to drink one tablespoon of fish oil every morning to have a better day and healthier lifestyle. The fish oil is made from cod liver that is collected from boats all around the country. There are a lot of vitamins in the oil witch is the main reason why we take it.

But of course we also eat food you can find globe wide, like pizza and hotdogs. Our most famous restaurant in Reykjavík is actually a hotdog stand called Bæjarins Bestu (the city’s best hotdogs). Recently we’ve opened a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant in Reykjavík and for a whole week there was a line out the door because everyone wanted to taste their famous donuts, a similar thing happened in 1993 when Domino’s Pizza opened for the first time.

Written by Katrín María and Petra Augusta

Presentation about Icelandic food

References:

All about food. Retrieved from: https://foodfunandother.wordpress.com/food/sheep-heads-svidahausar/ on 21.09.2015.

Áformað að stækka mjólkurbúið í Flatey um helming. Retrieved from:  https://www.bbl.is/frettir/frettir/aformad-ad-staekka-mjolkurbuid-i-flatey-um-helming/4621/ on 27.10.2015.

Iceland’s Skyr! Retrieved from:  http://www.skyriceland.com/ on 20.10.2015.