Butterflies in November

by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

  LAMB PTÉ ON SLICES OF RYE BREAD

  2 kilos of lamb meat, salt, pepper, allspice, bay leaves. Classic lamb pâté is made with pretty fat meat. Rinse the meat and let it simmer on a low heat in as little salted water as possible for an hour. Add a few bay leaves and two peeled onions in the last 30 minutes of boiling. At the end of the boiling the meat detaches itself from the bones. Remove the bones and put the meat into the mincer (or mixer) with the onion. Then put the pâté back into the pot and heat it. Season according to taste with, among other things, pepper and allspice. Allow the pâté to cool a while and then transfer to a suitably sized container or freezing-bag. Store in freezer. Eat on slices of rye bread.

  HOOCH (FOR PARTIES)

  This is obviously a sensitive issue for many law-abiding citizens. The objective is not to encourage the production of hooch or other types of home-brew (with the exception of crowberry schnapps; see recipe above), but just to remind the reader that some drinks are better enjoyed on the page than in the stomach. There is no need to remind you that not only does hooch have a disgusting taste, but it can also cause temporary blackouts and do bodily harm. Five kilos of sugar are required for every 20 litres of water and about 4 tablespoons of yeast. Mix the sugar and yeast in water heated to 25 degrees and leave at a constant temperature for three weeks, e.g. in a windowless boiler room or greenhouse. Then check to see if the liquid has fermented, i.e. whether all the sugar has dissolved, by tasting one drop on the tip of your tongue. The mixture should then be moved to a cool place where it will be allowed to settle. This should kill all germs. The liquid obtained is known as gambri (non-distilled hooch) and is normally of a greyish-yellow colour. The gambri then needs to be distilled with what is very often home-made distilling equipment. Install the equipment in an appropriate place, e.g. in the guest toilet or in the garage. It will give off a bitter odour that those in the know will not fail to recognize. A large portion of the liquid evaporates during the distillation process, leaving you with just a few litres of alcohol. Finally, filter the brew through charcoal to purify it and reduce that home-brew taste. Some people improve the taste by adding essences, which they buy in bottles in special home-brew stores.

  MEAT-STUFFED CABBAGE ROLLS

  1 kilo of fresh sausage meat, 1 head of cabbage, butter (melted), 1½ kilos of potatoes. Buy 1 kilo of fresh sausage meat from the supermarket. Boil the head of cabbage in lightly salted water for 10 minutes or until it starts to soften. Allow it to cool and peel off its leaves. Calculate 4 cabbage leaves per person. Put 2 tablespoons of the sausage meat on each leaf, and then roll and wrap the leaf around the meat to create tidy rolls. Arrange the rolls in a pot with a thick bottom and add water to it. Cook the meat-stuffed cabbage rolls at moderate heat for 20 minutes. Eat the dish with potato purée and melted butter. The potato purée is prepared as follows. Boil the potatoes in water at a moderate heat for 15 minutes. Then drain them, place them back in the pot and mash them. Classic potato purée has 2 cups of milk, 2–3 tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of sea salt and a dab of butter. The sausage meat can also be fried as meat balls in the pan. You then cover the bottom of the pan with water, turn off the heat and place the lid on the pan and leave it to simmer for 5 minutes without any interference. That way the sausage meat begins to swell, doubling its volume, like rising dough. In some cases, the lid of the pan will even rise on its own. The sausage meat balls are then eaten with potato purée, butter and boiled white cabbage.

  UNDRINKABLE COFFEE

  Undrinkable coffee can be made in a variety of ways. The simplest way is to leave a packet of coffee open in a cupboard with cream biscuits, light bulbs, batteries and teabags for several days. You can also make very thin coffee that is the same colour as tea. Another infallible method is to heat up old coffee, even in a microwave oven.

  HAMBURGERS

  As anyone driving through the dark days of winter and endless stretches of black sand will realize, the petrol stations and snack bars that are to be found on the circular road around the island are just about the only distractions one comes across. The inevitable therefore happens, i.e. people end up eating junk food: hot dogs that have been simmering in a pot for an entire weekend, or hamburgers, mayonnaise sandwiches, express pizzas, whipped ice creams dipped in chocolate and bags of mixed sweets. This is not in any way an attempt to promote the dietary habits propagated by these establishments, nor the extremely dangerous dyes used to colour gumdrops and children’s excessive consumption of sugar, to mention but a few examples. The fact that the narrator buys three bars of chocolate for a four-year-old child who is unable to choose which one he wants should not be taken as exemplary behaviour either. In this context it should be pointed out that the narrator has no child of her own and is therefore no expert in raising children. Eating habits are, to some extent, dictated by circumstance, but above all by narrative necessity. The following is a recipe for home-made hamburgers. 200 grams of minced beef, salt, pepper, parsley, chives, 2 wholewheat hamburger buns, 1 tomato, 4 slices of cucumber, 4 leaves of salad (different types can be used: lettuce, rocket salad, scurvy grass and chickweed leaves). Sauce: 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise, 2 teaspoons of milk curd or AB milk, 1 teaspoon of tomato sauce, half a teaspoon of French Dijon mustard. Mix the chopped parsley and chives with the minced meat and mould two handsome burgers. Salt and pepper. Fry the burgers in some olive oil in a pan or grill in the oven for 10 minutes. Lay out the leaves of salad on the heated bread buns and place the meat on them. Slice the tomato and cucumber and divide them equally between the two burgers. Put one tablespoon of sauce on top and then cover with the top of the bun.

  COCOA SOUP WITH RUSK AND WHIPPED CREAM

  Many people who have been hospitalized for a short period of one to two days (to have their appendix removed, for example) might have memories of a lukewarm cocoa soup served with a soggy biscuit. However, good cocoa soup is a real treat when, for example, served as a dessert after fried fish on a Tuesday. 2 tablespoons of cocoa, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 cups of water, a few drops of vanilla, 1 litre of milk, 1 tablespoon of potato flour, a pinch of salt, rusk, cream. Mix the cocoa and sugar in the water. Bring to the boil for 5 minutes. Then add milk and bring to the boil again. Mix the potato flour in a tiny bit of cold water and stir into the soup. Allow it to boil. Stir the vanilla drops into the soup last, but do not allow the soup to boil again. Eat the soup with the rusk, which everyone crumbles over their own bowls, allowing the crumbs to float on the surface. Place a dollop of thickly whipped cream on top.

  BANANA DESSERT

  Bananas are a tasty, nutritious and healthy snack to take on a journey, and suitable to hand to a hungry child over one’s shoulder while driving a car. And now that I am getting to know children a bit better, I can tell you that my banana and chocolate milkshake has become one of my travelling companion’s favourites. Chuck the banana, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce into a mixer or food processor (or mix it by hand) and make a cold banana drink. If there is no freezer in the chalet to store ice cream in, cultured milk can be used instead.

  And who doesn’t know the following simplest camping dessert recipe in the world? Calculate one banana per person. Make a long incision along the length of the banana with a sharp penknife and stick in 4–5 pieces of dark chocolate. Wrap the bananas in aluminium foil, place them on a cooling grill and allow to bake for a short while. Chocolate bananas can also be eaten with whipped cream. To whip the cream, pour it into a jar or container with a lid (e.g. an empty half-litre Fanta bottle) and shake it to a suitable rhythm, passing it from one person to the next, until the cream thickens. If you have a travel CD player handy you will be able to find some appropriate music. Fetch a bottle of Calvados from your backpack and eat the chocolate banana straight out of its wrapping with a spoon and whipped cream. Captain Morgan rum is not particularly recommended, except for men, who generally hold their drink better. Sit by the entrance of the tent or lie in zipped-together sleeping bags listening to s
nipes echoing through the night.

  MUSHROOM SOUP (LECCINUM SCABRUM)

  1 kilo of freshly picked mushrooms (eg. Leccinum scabrum or porcini mushrooms), water, 1 cup of cream, ½ cup of port. Pick 1 kilo of mushrooms, then clean them by brushing off the soil and cutting their stems, before rinsing under running water and drying them. Trim the mushrooms or chop them and fry them in a pan in butter or in a pot with a thick bottom. Season and add a tablespoon of ground thyme if available. Add 2 litres of water and a cube of vegetable bouillon and cream. Take the pot off the stove and add the port. Serve with fresh bread.

  COKE IN A SMALL GLASS BOTTLE

  In the 1970s, or at around the time I was born, it was popular to drink Coke from a small glass bottle through a liquorice straw. The method was as follows: uncap the bottle and slide a liquorice straw into the bottle. Ensure the Coke does not foam over the bottle. The skill lies in sucking up the Coke through the straw. There was also a tradition of leaving the liquorice straw steeped in the Coke for a certain period of time, say ten to fifteen minutes, to allow the liquorice to absorb the liquid in the meantime. The liquorice straw would then swell up, giving the Coke a brownish-grey colour and sticky consistency. The liquorice had to be pulled out of the bottle in time, before the straw started to turn to mush and blocked the neck of the bottle.

  APPLE PIE FROM GIANT RED APPLES WITH CREAM

  The narrator has a vision of giant red apples in a dream. To dream of food is normally a good omen, provided the food is fresh and sufficient for the occasion. The circumstances and individual elements need to be carefully examined, however. Food doesn’t have the same taste in the world of dreams as it does in our wakeful state. On the other hand, dream recipes may have something in common with fictitious ones. An example of a fictitious recipe is the apple tart made out of giant red apples. In reality most people would, of course, use green apples to make an apple pie. There are hundreds of variations of apple tart recipes. The following is a very simple and delicious one. 4 giant red apples, 2 cups of peeled almonds, 1 bar of chocolate (100 grams), 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, 1 cup of white sugar, 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of flour. Peel the apples and slice them into small pieces. Place them at the base of a buttered baking pan. Sprinkle the almonds and chopped chocolate over them, followed by a tablespoon of brown sugar. Mix the flour, sugar and butter so that it turns into a light yellow dough, like marzipan. Roll out the dough with your hands, spreading it over the filling. Press the dough all around the perimeter of the pan. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 25 minutes and eat with whipped cream.

  GRILLED SNOW BUNTING, HIGHLANDS-STYLE

  Please note that the following recipe should not be construed as an incitement to kill small protected feathered birds. It is not unlikely that the foreign hunters targeted the snow buntings because of their lack of familiarity with this species and poor knowledge of local regulations, since as everyone knows snow buntings are a sedentary breed and therefore Icelandic through and through. Overseas, small birds are a popular source of food and often impaled on skewers and then roasted over an open fire. On drizzly November days it is in many ways more suitable to cook small birds in baking trays in the heated electric ovens of highland kitchens. The narrator bears no responsibility for this recipe. 16 snow buntings, 20 pearl onions, salt, pepper, 2 cups of cream, a packet of bacon, mushrooms, 8 slices of white bread, milk, garlic, parsley. Start by plucking the birds. First cut the wings, necks and legs. The necks, if there are any, can be used for the juice. Next cut the skin under the sternum and peel it off like a coat. Then make an incision under the wing bone and extract the innards, gizzard, heart and liver. Put the hearts aside. Rinse the birds, salt and pepper them, both inside and out, and line them up on the draining board while you prepare the filling. Fry the small pieces of bacon and finely cut hearts in butter for 10 minutes. The hearts will give the broth a strong taste. Before frying them, though, make a small incision in each heart to drain the blood from it. Add the chopped mushrooms and garlic. Immerse the slices of white bread, devoid of their crust, in milk. Mix the bacon, hearts, mushrooms, garlic, wet bread, chopped parsley and other spices and stuff the filling into the small birds. Peel the pearl onions and fry them with the birds in butter in the pan for 10 minutes. Brown the birds on all sides. Arrange the birds, side by side, in the baking tray, pour cream on them and bake for 40 minutes. Sixteen snow buntings can easily fit into the average-size baking tray. Eat them with stuffing, green salad and macaroni.

  ICELANDIC MEAT SOUP

  It should be noted that the contents of this soup will vary according to whether it is made in the summer or winter and the availability of vegetables in any given place or time. 1 kilo of lamb meat (shoulder or leg), 2½ litres of water, 2 tablespoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, ½ cup rice (it is good to use brown rice, which you will need to pre-boil, however), 4 tablespoons of oats or barley, 4 tablespoons of dry soup herbs, 1 big turnip or 2 small ones, 10 small potatoes, preferably unpeeled, 5 carrots, 1–2 onions or one leek. Celery can also be used (both stalk and leaves), fresh spinach, garden dock, green cabbage, broccoli and whatever other vegetable happens to be handy in each case. Rinse the meat, cut it into rather small pieces and put it into a pot. Cover with water, salt it, close the lid and boil for 15 minutes. Lift the lid and skim off the froth. Add water to the pot and then the various vegetables, according to the cooking time of each one. Be careful not to overcook the vegetables. Boil it all together until it fuses. It is good to throw some thyme into the soup and some chopped mint, which grows wild in many parts of Iceland and is particularly good with lamb, since it reduces that farm shed taste.

  SHEEP’S HEAD JELLY

  After torching the sheep’s heads, brush them with an abrasive brush to wash away the soot. Next place the heads in lukewarm water and scrub them well, both internally and externally, making sure that you scrape the eyes and ears. Arrange the black heads together in a big pot, salt them and pour water over them, without necessarily covering them. When the pot comes to the boil, brown froth should ooze out of the heads. Seal the pot and boil the heads at a moderate heat for an hour or until the meat loosens from the bone. De-bone the meat and place it in a tin (e.g. Christmas cake tin). Remove the eyeballs, although it is a question of taste whether the eyes and ears should be left in the jelly. Pour a little broth over it to ensure it glues together better. Store under light pressure in the fridge overnight, then turn it upside down and cut it into slices. Sheep’s head jelly is more often than not eaten with turnip mousse or boiled potatoes and white milk sauce.

  PEPPER COOKIES WITH ICING SUGAR

  The baking of pepper cookies in close collaboration with a child is a permanent feature in any household with a kid in the lead-up to Christmas. 150 grams of sugar, 250 grams of syrup, ½ teaspoon of pepper, 2 teaspoons of ginger, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of cloves, 125 grams of butter, 1 egg, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 400 grams of flour. Mix the sugar, syrup and butter and bring to simmering point. Mix in the baking soda with all the spices, pepper, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Then add the egg and flour. Keep 1–2 cups of flour to knead the dough. Knead the dough on the table with the child. Roll out the dough and let the child cut out the shapes him/herself (Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, bells, angels and reindeer) and decorate the cookies with the icing. Icing: 125 grams of icing sugar and 1–1½ egg whites mixed well together. Colour according to taste.

  HOT COCOA

  2 tablespoons of cocoa, 2 tablespoons of sugar, ½ cup of water, ½ litre of milk. Mix cocoa and sugar in a pot of water. Heat and stir until boiling point. Add the milk and bring to a boil again.

  HOT CHOCOLATE FROM REAL CHOCOLATE BARS

  2 bars (200 grams) of chocolate, 2 cups of water, 1 litre of fresh milk, a pinch of salt. Break the chocolate over a pot and pour water over it. Heat and stir until the chocolate has melted. Add the milk and bring to a boil. Add a pinch of salt. It is good to drink boiling hot with whipped cream in a cou
ntry house on a cold and rainy day. You can also pour the hot chocolate into a thermos and take it with an extra cup on a visit to an old people’s home.