by Valur Gunnarsson
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Everything is allowed
It used to be that you had certain blowouts, such as Christmas, Easter or 'Sprengidagur.' Sprengidagur is on the 7th Tuesday before Easter, this year landing on the 8th of February, and translates literally as 'exploding day,' or 'bursting day,' the idea being that you are supposed to eat until you burst. This is done in preparation for the 40 days until Easter where meat is neither to be eaten nor even mentioned. In fact, people would refer to meat as 'cloven salmon' during Lent to avoid mentioning it by name.
But these days, it seems every day is bursting day. Whereas a couple of decades ago you would pig out at Tommaborgarar once a month, now Icelanders eat out at some snack bar, no holds barred, several times a week. And it goes to show you can tell. So what is Icelandic food culture that has been so lacking in resilience when faced with external threats?
Traditional cuisine in Iceland is not exactly renowned for being very vegan or even vegetarian-friendly. In fact the average Icelander is unlikely to know what vegan means (someone who consumes no animal products whatsoever). Amidst the sheep's' heads, rams' testicles and cods' cheeks, you're unlikely to tempt the average Icelander with a good salad. This is the land after all where adverts remind us that 'Icelanders eat hotdogs'- apparently a matter of national pride. Yet it was in this very land that my eating habits and indeed, my entire life, underwent extraordinary transformation. It was in a tiny Icelandic countryside village in May 2002 that I was first introduced by a friend to the concept of a 'raw food' lifestyle.
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w00t w00t... what? I thought this was both interesting and funny X3
