Simple geography aside, Iceland remains a country apart from the rest of Scandinavia. Its notoriously cantankerous climate and its shortage of arable land have of necessity fostered an inventive spirit in its growers and cooks, one that makes the most of and fiercely protects what this rugged land provides.
And Iceland provides what few other countries can—an astoundingly pristine environment. Its rivers and streams are still free of effluents and other pollutants, and the island’s many geothermal springs supply a powerful and clean source of energy. Few bugs can survive the cold climate, so pesticide use is minimal. Its very isolation means protection from animal diseases like foot-and-mouth and mad cow. Government regulations concerning meat production are very strict—the use of hormones or feed made from animal products is prohibited, although some of the grain used in animal feed has been treated with pesticides. And the puffins and guillemots and cormorants Icelanders customarily eat, birds who feed on small fish, give a whole new meaning to “free range.” (The guillemot’s eggs, each about five inches long and gorgeously speckled in black on a teal or cream-colored shell, are often found on breakfast tables here.)
Public awareness of the country’s pure ecosystem is on the rise, and is now used as a tool for promoting Icelandic foods on the world market. Although the country’s highland-grazed lamb does not yet have dénomination d’origine contrôlée certification, the government is implementing an ecological tracking system to follow lambs from birth to consumer. Throughout the country, native plants and animals are being used innovatively, even as the old methods are preserved.
Ironically, the fact that Icelandic agriculture is so clean has thwarted the nascent organic movement, which finds its message of absolute purity to be a hard sell. But it’s getting easier, as Icelanders gain experience with food-borne illnesses. Last year, for example, due to an increase in commercial chicken and pork production, there was also a marked increase in outbreaks of salmonella.
The environment has always been pure, but it has taken many hundreds of years to develop a truly characteristic Icelandic cuisine. Agricultural conditions were formidable when Norse settlers first arrived on the island, in the late ninth century. They practiced the same slash-and-burn farming they had used in Norway. Except in Iceland the trees didn’t grow back, and without trees to shed leaves or drop their trunks to decompose, soil can’t be coaxed to replenish itself in fewer than 10,000 years.
Yet the settlers persisted with agriculture, turning from garden crops to livestock, and the winter grazing of sheep and horses further damaged the fragile soil. The ocean that surrounded them teemed with edible life, but Icelanders didn’t look to the sea, as did the rest of Scandinavia. Seafood, particularly bottom-feeders like shrimp, were thought to be strange and unwholesome. Instead, Icelanders prized freshwater fish like salmon and trout.
Added to that is Iceland’s volcanic soil, in which what little vegetation there is grows slowly. Apart from dulse (a type of seaweed), the main wild edibles are arctic thyme, lichen (Iceland moss), wild sorrel, and angelica. Unlike the rest of Scandinavia, Iceland has only three native berry varieties: bearberries, bog bilberries, and crowberries, which are made into jam. But you can’t count on spreading that jam on bread. Grain crops, other than barley and rye, aren’t easily supported in this soil either. Traditional agriculture relied on turnips and kale; not even carrots were cultivated until relatively recently. Only through new technology has hothouse gardening enabled Iceland to produce domestic peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries.
Gradually, the watchwords of Icelandic food have evolved from marginality and survival to sustainability. Traditional Icelandic foodways have been enlivened by the growers and cooks who have the passion to work with the difficult climate and use the natural energy that the earth provides. Örn Jónsson, professor of innovation at the University of Iceland and my host, introduced me to Ingolfur Gudnason, who has for 14 years been raising organic hothouse herbs and salad greens and slowly, very slowly, introducing them to the Icelandic market (it took nearly 7 years before Reykjavík supermarkets would agree to stock his produce). Gudnason grows arugula, mizuna, basil, tarragon, cilantro, sage—in all, 35 varieties. Along with his herbs he supplies his customers with printed recipe cards containing information about their medicinal uses and about organic farming. By tapping into the geothermal springs he can heat his greenhouses inexpensively, yet he still has a huge electricity bill for the grow lights he needs during the long winter. Gudnason also heats his fields, to get a jump start on nature. Using heat pipes he can plant cabbages two weeks earlier than most other growers here—and with such a brief growing season, farmers need to take advantage of each and every day they can.
At Lake M´yvatn, in northeast Iceland, the land is so extreme that it was used as a training ground for U.S. astronauts preparing for moon walks. Hot springs burst from underground in boiling mud pots and steam vents, and their warmth allows potatoes to be planted as early as April.
For Gudn´y Halldórsdóttir and her husband, Snaebjörn Pétursson, the earth itself becomes an oven for the local specialty called hverabraud, a moist, sweet rye bread that is steamed in the ground. Each morning they drive out to a steam vent in the desertlike terrain where they’ve dug a shallow hole and lined it with bricks. They bury a lidded metal box filled with stiff dough, cover the hole, and leave the bread to steam for 24 hours. Next morning they unearth a rich, brown, aromatic loaf, perfectly cooked thanks to the steam hole’s steady temperature.
Perhaps the most unexpected use of geothermal energy occurs at Fljot, on Iceland’s northern coast, where for the past two and a half years Gudmundur (“Gundi”) Örn Ingólfsson has been raising Mediterranean sea bass. He produces 50 tons of fish a year, mainly for export. Geothermal heat keeps the water in the tanks at 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit). Few harmful organisms can survive in Iceland’s arctic climate, so the farm can support fish in a disease-free environment (unlike its sister farm in Perpignan, France, which must constantly deal with the myriad pathogens that thrive in the Mediterranean). For our dinner that evening, Gundi generously pulled some fish from the tank. It was beautifully white, with a firm texture and a delicate, clean taste.
The global kitchen may have delivered new ingredients and tastes to Iceland, but its customs are still very much alive. Old dishes are simply updated. In M´yvatn, Pétur Snaebjörnsson connects small producers of organic lamb or produce with restaurants around the island. At his own restaurant, Gamli Baerinn (“The Old Farm”), he has put a modern spin on such Icelandic mainstays as mutton soup and has introduced locally smoked arctic char. This is char smoked the old-fashioned way, over briquettes made of sheep dung and hay.
The man responsible for this buttery fish is Jón Adalsteinsson, who does business from his sod smokehouse. Adalsteinsson salts the char for 24 hours, then cold-smokes it for two to five days. Served on a slab of hverabraud, its smoky, smooth flavor beautifully captures the rugged beauty of M´yvatn.
On the coast, fish is more often dried than smoked. Árni Páll Johannsson, a well-known film and exhibition designer, has a unique drying shed next to his house in the small town of Hofsós, built right at the point where Thorfinn Karlsefni, the father of the first European child born in North America, set sail for Vinland in the 11th century. The shed is slatted and roofed, which allows air in but keeps the rain out. Johannsson makes “hardfish,” prepared by soaking cod for three weeks in a salt brine then drying it until stiff.
Smoked lamb, or hangikjöt, is another Icelandic specialty, traditionally served at Christmas. It was summer when I visited, so I didn’t hold out much hope of being able to have a sample. But then I met Valgerdur Kristjánsdóttir, of Thrastastadir (“Thrush Farm”), whose sheep graze throughout the summer on highland grasses, which lend depth of flavor to their meat, and who makes hangikjöt year-round.
To make hangikjöt, Kristjánsdóttir soaks the leg in a salt brine for nearly a week, then hangs it to dry for a couple of days. She wraps it in muslin and takes it out to a tiny smokehouse dug into the side of a hill, where it is carefully smoked over sheep dung. She boils the smoked lamb, which, with its dusky flavor, conjures associations with medieval kitchens. This she serves hot with canned green peas and boiled potatoes in a sweetened béchamel sauce. For dessert Kristjánsdóttir creates jólakaka, a pound cake, also once reserved for the Christmas holidays (white flour and raisins were imported luxury items) but now an everyday sweet.
Leaving Iceland without a healthy dose of herring is unthinkable. At the Herring Era Museum, in Siglufjördur, not far from Gundi’s sea bass operation, the director, Örlygur Kristfinnsson, treated me to both smoked and marinated herring, and over an accompanying swig of brennivín, Iceland’s caraway- or angelica-flavored schnapps, regaled me with tales of the halcyon days of the herring trade. From 1903 until 1969, there was a great abundance, but then, as a result of overexploitation of the herring by Norway, Iceland, and Russia, and a change in migration patterns, the vast schools of fish deserted Icelandic waters, causing the industry to collapse. Remnants of better times are evident in Siglufjördur, once the world’s most famous herring town—the museum, housed in an early-20th-century salting station, contains beautiful old stencils that identified the herring barrels and the dormitories inhabited by the “herring girls,” who for several months each year processed and packed the fish, sometimes earning more than the men in the fishing fleets.
Herring is, of course, still a part of Icelandic cooking, but there are other fish in these waters, and some of the best are making their way onto the menus of Reykjavík’s young chefs, many of whom have traveled extensively abroad and have brought home new cooking methods and ingredients to spice up what is given to them by the sea. At the restaurant Örn Jónsson runs at the university, chef Jóhann Jóhannsson prepares a thin-sliced monkfish that is coated with a Dijon mustard crust before being seared and served at room temperature with a chile sauce. Ocean-catfish cheeks are marinated in garlic- and sesame-seed-infused oil, then sautéed and accompanied by greens from local producers’ hothouses. Smoked haddock in a horseradish cream sauce is followed by delicious cod gills soaked in a curry marinade, then dipped in a thick egg batter and sautéed. To end the meal on a fresh, cool, note, Jóhannsson offers a bowl of homemade skyr (a glorious, fresh, yogurtlike cheese made from skimmed milk) ringed with crème anglaise, blueberries, and mint.
With little culinary tradition to adhere to, chefs like Siggi Hall feel free to play with new flavors and invent traditions of their own. Hall features wonderful native produce at his namesake restaurant, in such dishes as lamb served rare with a wild blueberry sauce and sprigs of arctic thyme; skate with a basil-infused butter sauce; or his signature creation of Catalan-style salt cod, braised in red wine with tomatoes and bell peppers.
Iceland is rich with terroir and with opportunities to taste the connections among earth, water, and food. There may be no other place where we can encounter an environment this pure as we discover the pleasures of a cuisine in the making.
Edible Iceland
For hverabraud, visit Heilsukostur restaurant, about 28 miles from Reykjavík (Breijumörk 21, Hveragerdi; 483-5010). Gamli Baerinn (“The Old Farm”) restaurant, Hótel Reynihlid (660 M´yvatn; 464-4270). Restaurant Siggi Hall at Odinsveum (Thórsgata 1, 101 Reykjavík; 511-6677). Ingolfur Gudnason’s Engi Herb Farm (Laugarási, Bláskógabygg 801, Selfoss). Herring Era Museum (Snorragata 15 IS-580, Siglufjördur; 467-1604). Iceland Tourist Board (212-885-9700; icelandtouristboard.com).