What to eat Iceland? culinary specialties and gastronomy

Life is expensive in Iceland and although local products are more affordable, they are still expensive. The Bónus supermarket chain - recognisable by its yellow front with a pink pig on it - offers the best prices for shopping. They offer all kinds of delicatessen, bread, cheese, biscuits and other products that are easy to carry. Indeed it is important to note that Iceland is very sparsely populated and there are few restaurants outside the cities. You will probably have to do some cooking yourself, especially to prepare a picnic lunch.

In many villages on the island, the gas station is the center of everything: gas, post office, bank, bus stop, grocery store and "restaurant". The stations open early in the morning and close, generally, between 8:30 and 11:00 pm. If the fast-food option may seem cheap, in Iceland, the prices are almost twice as expensive as in France. Pizzerias remain a good solution, but once again, the prices are higher than in France. In hotels, you will often find restaurants that offer a variety of menus, generally of good quality, but which are sometimes expensive - with the exception of complete and copious breakfast formulas at a reasonable price. However, beware of the end of service hours, which sometimes do not exceed 9pm for small hotels, especially out of season. There are of course many more classic restaurants with a wide range of prices, which will allow you to get a closer look at Icelandic cuisine.

The most curious gourmets will also be able to discover local specialities during culinary events, such as the much awaited Þorrablót (pronounced thorrablot with the "th" as in English), a winter festival of Viking origin. In practice, the dates - which vary from year to year - range from late January to late February. You can try the Þorramatur, a buffet of traditional Icelandic dishes, consisting mainly of dried meat and fish products, served with rúgbrauð (very dense black rye bread), butter and lots of brandy.

Traditionally, agriculture has been limited to rye, barley, potatoes, cabbage, carrots or turnips. Thanks to geothermal energy, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers can now be grown in greenhouses. Icelanders also enrich their cuisine with wild products: blueberries, crowberries (a kind of black berry), lingonberries, rhubarb, as well as certain types of seaweed and woodland mushrooms. Livestock farming has historically focused on sheep and, to a lesser extent, on beef and pork.

Icelanders are big consumers of dairy products. Of course, you can't miss the thick and creamy skyr, similar to a cottage cheese, often accompanied by cream and blueberry jam. All kinds of milk are available: nymjólk (raw milk), lettmjólk (skimmed milk), kókómjólk (chocolate milk), súrmjólk (fermented milk), but also yoghurt(jógúrt) and cream yoghurt(thykkmjólk). Butter(smjör) is quite expensive, but you can also find cheaper alternatives such as smjörvi (low-fat butter). Ice cream(ís) is very popular and particularly creamy.

The country produces no less than 80 kinds of cheese, some of which are similar to Dutch cheeses such as brauðostur, tilsiter, óðalsostur, skólaostur and búri. Historically, they were mainly made from sheep's or goat's milk, but nowadays cow's milk is becoming more common. The term gráðaostur refers to blue-veined cheeses. Finally, mysingur

is a type of brown spreadable cheese that gets its colour and sweetness from a process of caramelisation of the whey. Seafood is of course a major attraction along the country's 5,000 kilometres of coastline. Salmon is of course Iceland's flagship species, but there are other species: haddock, cod, herring, turbot, sole, whiting, mackerel, as well as various seafood such as lobster, mussels and scallops. And let's not forget the trout that abound in the lakes and rivers.

But Iceland also has some products that may surprise the uninitiated. Svið is probably the most famous. This smoked and boiled sheep's head is served with mashed potatoes. Despite its unappealing appearance, its taste - powerful - is still pleasant. The hrútspungar is a jelly-like terrine of ram's testicles, which is cut into thin slices like a head cheese.

More aggressive for the taste buds, hákarl is made of fermented Greenland shark meat. The flesh of this animal, toxic as it is, is buried in the sand for 6 to 12 weeks before being hung to dry in the open air for a few more months. This radical treatment allows the toxins to be eliminated. It is then cut into small cubes that look like rubbery bacon. The ammonia smell is extremely strong, but the taste is more subtle. Seal hunting - the meat was often processed in brine - was common along the coast. Whaling was also important from the 19th century onwards, although the meat of stranded cetaceans was also collected long before that. While this fishery was briefly banned between 1992 and 2006, it is now allowed again, but the consumption of whale meat remains rare in Iceland today.

Many birds were also hunted, such as puffins, seabirds with coloured beaks, whose flesh is smoked. Other birds were prized such as seagulls, guillemots (sea birds), geese, ducks and ptarmigan (a type of white partridge). Reindeer were introduced from continental Scandinavia and adapted particularly well to the Icelandic moors. Its meat is highly prized, making it a rather expensive delicacy.

It is worth noting that many of these specialities, unusual at first glance, were for centuries an important source of protein for Icelanders, at a time when intensive livestock farming and food imports were almost non-existent. Today, most of these products are very rare and mostly consumed in a folkloric way.

Among the meat dishes, mutton plays an important role: kjötsupa (lamb soup with herbs and vegetables), pylsur (hot dog sausage), bjúgu (smoked sausage), hangikjöt (smoked and boiled leg of mutton, to be eaten hot or cold), kótilettur (mutton chops, sometimes smoked) or kjötbollur (minced meatballs). The term slátur or 'slaughter' refers to two products made from the entrails of sheep: blóðmör (black pudding) and lifrarpylsa (liver sausage).

Lax or salmon, the Icelandic fish par excellence, can be reyktur (smoked) or grafinn (marinated with dill) in a salt-sugar mixture. Laxasalat is a spread made from salmon, while kaviar is a spread made from fish roe such as tarama. Harðfiskur is a type of dried fish, usually cod, eaten with buttered bread. Síld is a speciality of marinated herring. The more substantial plokkfiskur is a cod stew with potatoes, while the more refined humarsúpa is a creamy langoustine soup.

Bakeries(bakarí) offer a variety of breads, often very good, including rúgbrauð (rye bread) which was traditionally baked in the ground naturally heated by geysers. Flatbrauð are unleavened rye cakes perfect for making sandwiches. As for sweets, there is not much choice, but there are some tasty pastries, including cinnamon rolls(cinnabon or kanilsnúð), chocolate cakes(skúffukaka), multi-layered plum jam cakes(vínarterta) and doughnuts(kleina). The most common dessert - especially at Christmas - is möndlu grautur, a rice pudding with cinnamon.

Icelanders are also the 5th biggest consumers of coffee in the world with almost 20 kg per year per inhabitant, almost twice as much as the French. They generally drink classic long coffees at any time of the day, especially as an afternoon snack with a pastry.

If we often associate prohibition with the USA, between 1915 and 1989, Iceland also put in place an anti-alcohol policy, which strangely enough applied mainly to beer, which was not very alcoholic and considered more tempting for teenagers. But the reasons were also cultural, as beer was associated with Denmark, a country that held sway over Iceland until 1944, when the island finally declared its independence. Since the lifting of this prohibition, Icelanders have celebrated Beer Day or Bjórdagurinn every March^1st.

Today, light beer(öll) can be found everywhere, such as the Viking brand. Among the classic beers(bjór) are Egils Pilsner, Thule, Spegils, Egils Gull, Litli Jon and Black Death. As for brandy, we find of course the signature alcohol of Iceland: brennivín, a potato alcohol similar to vodka, but flavoured with cumin and caraway, similar to Norwegian or Swedish aquavit. There is also vodka, not to mention the schnapps from the Fjallagrasa distillery, flavoured with Icelandic lichen. Please note that, apart from bars, only state-owned shops(vínbúð) are allowed to sell strong spirits, including wines and strong beers.