The Toasted Cheese Sandwiches of Iceland
A wanderlust, I am happiest with my feet firmly planted in someone else’s land. Dump me off on a cracked tarmac, slap a stamp in my passport, shuffle me through customs and feel my pulse race. Travel clears my head, opens my eyes and enlivens my life in countless ways.
One of the biggest impacts that journeying the globe has had is in terms of cuisine. Where once I limited myself to the basic foods of my childhood, I now dabble in delicacies from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Anything that I taste and enjoy overseas I later attempt to replicate in my kitchen.
When my husband Sean and I first discussed visiting Iceland in the spring of 2000, I assumed that I would sample such local delicacies as shark, herring and turnips. I imagined the Icelandic-themed dinner party that I would later host, one featuring the culinary highlights of the country.
Seven years later ”Icelandic Night” has yet to take place. The delay is not due to snobbery, laziness or distate. Rather it has to do with our limited experiences with the native foods of this highly productive and prosperous country.
Our trip began on the western coast in the capital of Reykjavik. This city of 117,000 afforded us the opportunity to try such local dishes as herring, the yogurt-like skyr, and the pungent hakarl. A more palatable term for “dessicated shark meat,” hakarl is shark meat that has been buried and left to decay for a minimum of two months.
Hakarl’s tradition dates back to a time when Icelanders possessed few methods of preserving and no means of refrigeration. Meats were either salted, smoked or, in the case of the shark, simply left to decompose. Without question hakarl is an acquired smell and taste, one that I am unable to recreate in either New York or Southeastern PA.
Once we left Reykjavik, we soon learned how few restaurants exist in this glacier-rich, cafe-poor country. Spirited wild horses, black lava fields, steaming thermal springs and waterfalls dot the landscape. Grocery stores or coffee shops? Try the lone gas station 200 miles down the road. The grizzled man behind the counter will grill a nice toasted cheese sandwich or two for you.
Served on styrofoam plates, toasted cheese sandwiches became the staple of our diet. What do you want for lunch? Toasted cheese sandwich. Dinner? Oh, I think I’ll indulge in another toasted cheese sandwich. Breakfast? Well, you can have some bread with a side of herring or hakarl at the hotel or drive 50 miles to a petrol shop for, yep, two pieces of toast with a slice of orange cheese squished between them.
Periodically I read of Icelandic’s culinary renaissance, of the restaurants cropping up in Reykjavik and presumably other parts of the country. Yet, when we return to Iceland, I undoubtedly will skip the new global restaurants and instead seek out the country’s backwoods gas stations and the nourishing meals that they invariably provided me.
