On Wednesday, what I would like to have done is get a better picture of the Russian sailing vessel that was moored in the harbor when we arrived. But alas, it had already gone back to Russia. In fact, it was already gone Monday morning. Darn! I really wanted a closer look at that ship. So we just stayed in Reykjavik to visit museums and soak up local culture, including the food culture. Food is expensive—about twice the price paid in Iowa. And that is true of both prepared food and food sold in supermarkets. (I saw a package of lunch meat, probably bologna, in a supermarket priced at about $8.00 per pound.) But in Iceland, much of the food must be imported, so food has always been expensive. And before the exchange rate of the Krona crashed last year, the prices, in U.S. dollars, would have been much higher. This is actually a very good time to visit Iceland.
The favorite national food of Icelanders is lamb soup. It’s a thick soup made of lamb, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots, and it’s very tasty. It is served everywhere from elite restaurants to truck stop lunch counters. It varies in quality, but the worst it ever gets is wonderful. The most popular restaurant in Reykjavik is a hot dog stand. When I first heard this I was quite puzzled. But it turns out that what they call a hot dog is different from anything served in the U.S. It’s a spicy, coarse ground sausage, probably mutton, and it’s cheap and delicious. The only hot dogs I ever ate in the U.S. that resemble an Iceland dog are those I ate at Coney Island in the 1960s. So basically, an Iceland hot dog is an original Coney Island hot dog.
While all food in Iceland is pricey, some is delicious—and some isn’t! And it’s all equally pricey. How do you find the good food? By accident! Some of the places recommended by the tourest guides were excellent, and some were lousy. Going to a place frequented by the natives was not a reliable guide either. A place might be popular with the locals because they have the best rock band. But if you stay there a few days, you find the good places. And when Reykjavik food is good, it’s very, very good. There is a huge dairy industry in Iceland, and all dairy goods are excellent and cheap. They have the best butter on earth, and use it lavishly.
Many restaurants offer minke whale steak, and even puffin. But typical restaurant fare is lamb, codfish, and horsemeat. (They do not raise horses specifically for slaughter. But in a country that imports a lot of its food, nothing is wasted. I’ll say more about this later.) You’d think codfish would be dogmeat cheap, since Iceland still exports codfish. But it’s quite expensive in Rejkavik. What little codfish the Icelanders still take from the sea, they sell mostly to rich Europeans to pay for the many foodstuffs which they must import. They also export a lot of mutton, and very small amounts of horsemeat, mostly to France and Japan, where it is considered a delicacy.
We visited a museum where they have preserved a recently discovered a 9th century Viking longhouse, right in downtown Reykjavik. We also visited the National Museum. They have exhibits showing reproductions of the ancient documents, and also archaeological artifacts dating back to the earliest settlements. One thing about the Icelanders’ history is that they have so much of it. The earliest settlers were not literate, and records for the first two hundred years were passed down orally before they were written down. But soon after they accepted Christianity in 1000 AD, they became nearly 100% literate, and have remained so ever since. In the middle ages, when in most of Europe only a privileged few could read, Iceland was almost 100% literate. So when the sagas were written, all Icelanders could read them—and they all did--and every generation since has read them. This is possible because the language has hardly changed over the last thousand years. And the connection to the sagas is one factor that has helped prevent it from changing. It is said that those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. Icelanders fully understand this; they have studied their mistakes carefully, and have no intention of repeating them. More on this later.
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