The Little Book of the Icelanders in the Old Days

by Alda Sigmundsdottir

  Meanwhile, the pelt of the sheep was used for outerwear (picture hip and cool sheepskin vest) and for shoes (picture tragically unhip, slipper-like thingies).

  The meat, obviously, was eaten. Sometimes fresh, although fresh wasn’t all that appealing to the old Icelandic palate. Folks were used to meat being preserved in some way, like salted or smoked, so that’s what they preferred. Naturally the offal was eaten, too. Hell, anything that could be eaten, was eaten. Even the blood, which was mixed with fat and grain or Iceland moss, and made into pudding. The lungs, liver and heart were boiled and eaten fresh or pickled. The glands (pardon me: the sweetbreads) were imbibed, too. The colon was either chopped up and mixed into the blood pudding concoction, or stuffed with meat and pickled. The heads and feet were singed (burned) to remove all the hairs, kept until they started to go rancid (this was supposed to enhance the flavour), then ingested. Either that or they were boiled before they reached their rancid state, and then pickled. The brain was boiled, mashed with salt, and eaten - or kneaded with grain and made into cakes that were boiled and eaten as an accompaniment to the singed sheep’s heads and feet. The testicles of the ram were boiled and pickled, to be consumed at a later date.

  Incidentally, nearly all of the above (ahem) delicacies are available today at your local Icelandic supermarket, though many of them are seasonal. The only exceptions I believe are the lungs, colon, sweetbreads, brain and feet - I’ve never encountered those in a grocery store, though I can’t rule out that they are sold somewhere.

  The sheep had some interesting medical uses, as well. For example, the lungs were sometimes fried up and consumed on an empty stomach “as an antidote to an alcoholic drink”, according to Íslenzkir þjóðhættir. In layman’s terms this means: “To help you get wasted without suffering a massive hangover the next day.” The singed meat of a ram was supposed to cure a facial rash, ram’s fat was supposed to be good for burns, ram piss mixed with honey was supposed to alleviate oedema, and ash from burned sheep’s bones was believed to be good for healing cuts and burns.

  Furthermore, burning a ram’s horn was supposed to be good for keeping ghosts away (always handy).

  Last, but definitely not least, the bones of the sheep were toys for children. The joints were sheep, the jawbones cows (the teeth were the udders), and the shin bones horses. These toys were called “children’s gold” and were invariably highly treasured by their owners.

  29 Leadership. I mean sheep.

  In spite of their extensive dependence on sheep, the Icelanders have long considered them rather stupid animals. Like if you really want to insult someone, you might call them sauðheimskur, which literally means “sheep stupid”. Or if you want to describe someone as being uncouth, you’d say hann er algjör sauður, meaning “he’s a total sheep”.

  Which is why it’s ironic that a type of sheep exists that is apparently unique to the Icelandic sheep breed: the forystukind, or “leader sheep”. (Actually, “leadership sheep” if you want to get technical, but that sounds a little convoluted.)

  These leader sheep - who are frequently rams, but not always - somehow conclude that they are the leaders of a flock. To be the owner of a leader sheep in the old days was a Very Good Thing (and it still is, though perhaps marginally less important than it was back then). The leader sheep seemed to have a sixth sense about the best place to tread, which was a highly useful thing in the winter. After all, snow could easily be covering deep cracks or crevices that you sure as hell wouldn’t want to tumble into if you were a sheep - or anybody for that matter. Somehow the leader sheep instinctively knew where the snow was shallowest and therefore where it was best to tread, even if the ground wasn’t visible.

  Leader sheep had a built-in compass that guided them home in blizzards, fog, or darkness. Many a leader sheep has saved the lives of both its flock and the shepherd, who no doubt quickly realised that following where the leader sheep led was a very good idea. For instance if the leader sheep showed clear signs of wanting to leave the pasture and go home, the shepherd would almost always comply. Sure enough: a blizzard would usually blow in soon afterward. The leader sheep generally slept near the door of the sheep shed, but when it moved away from the door and further into the shed the shepherd could usually take it as a sign that a storm was gathering, of the kind that was not safe for sheep (or anyone) to be out in.

  So obviously a leader sheep was a pretty amazing creature, and far from being “sheep stupid”. And naturally they were highly valued. When their less clairvoyant brethren were sent to the slaughter, the leader sheep generally remained at home, coddled and catered to, very often living to the ripe old age of thirteen or fourteen. And if at some point during their lives they were sold, their owners were always able to fetch a handsome price for them.

  30 Food glorious food

  It is pretty easy to scoff at all the putrid food the Icelanders imbibed in the old days. But before we do, let us take a moment to remember that, when it came to food, the Iceland of old was no different from any other place in the world. People’s lives have always revolved around food: how to get it, how to cook it, and how to conserve it. And in Iceland, given the hardly-any-firewood problem, finding the best way to preserve and prepare food using a minimal amount of energy was paramount.

  Take the perennially popular putrid shark. Today we think of it largely as a joke - give tourists a small piece of “cured shark” (snicker) and watch their faces twist in abject horror before they start shouting bloody murder at being tricked into imbibing something so heinous.

  But here’s the thing: this particular shark (the Greenland shark) is of a species that stores urine in its flesh (I know, delightful). You may want to think of it as ammonia, because that’s basically what it is. Now, if you ingested this ammonia in the old days you would likely die a horrible death. That shark needed to go through some serious detoxification before it was fit for human consumption. To that end it was buried in the ground for several weeks to allow the ammonia to seep out of it, and then hung out to dry. By which time it had developed a rather, shall we say, pungent flavour. Yet it fulfilled its purpose - providing nourishment to people without sending them to their graves in the process.

  Also: hanging meat up over a fire, preferably if the firewood was dung (the best seasoning they had at the time), was a conservation method par excellance. Pickling: also highly popular. For that they used the whey from the skyr, which was the most common dairy product in the Iceland of old, next to plain milk. After you made your skyr (a curdling agent was put into the milk, taken from the stomach of a calf that had been slaughtered, and it made the milk curdle and thus you got your skyr, yes I know) you were left with this barrel of whey into which you could basically dump any and all meat or fish, and it would be preserved. As a bonus, the whey was rich in vitamins and protein, so you could drink it - though it tasted pretty abominable, at least to the modern palate. It is very sour and can last for ages without going bad ... indeed, back then people considered whey to be at its best when it was around two years old, by which time they probably considered it to have aged properly. Incidentally, you can still buy it in the store if you so desire (and I do not know why you would, except maybe to use as a poor substitute for white wine in recipes).

  Last, but not least, there was the drying method (always a crowd-pleaser), which was used for fish in particular. Dried fish was a staple of the Icelanders’ diet, and we still enjoy it today, though we don’t normally eat it as a full meal - more as a snack, with butter on top. Back in the day, however, it constituted the main meal of the day, which was usually eaten around two or three in the afternoon. Dried fish, which we call harðfiskur, or “hard fish”, is another food that tourists tend to turn up their noses at because they think it stinks. Icelanders, on the other hand, seem incapable of finding anything wrong with the smell of dried fish - differing, in that respect, from just about every other species of human.

  31 Ration

  It would be a gross aberrat
ion to say that the Icelanders of old ate a diversified diet. There was dairy and there were animal proteins, and maybe, if people were lucky, there might a handful of grain. That was about it.

  The main meals of the day were breakfast, which was eaten around six am (which they called miðmorgun - “mid-morning” ... go figure), a lunch of sorts, eaten around ten or eleven am, and then the main meal of the day, eaten around two or three pm. None of the sources I consulted made mention of a later meal, which is odd. I find it hard to believe that people received no nourishment between three and ten pm, when the kvöldvaka ended. But what do I know? Maybe they were really into fasting back then.

  The first two meals usually consisted of skyr and milk. Failing that, there was some kind of gruel, plus milk. Curiously, both of these meals were called skattur, which today is the word for tax. The earlier meal was called litli-skattur - “little tax”, and the second one was just ... skattur.

  The midday meal usually consisted of dried fish and butter - a major staple in the Icelanders’ diet, as I said - and occasionally a meat or fish soup, or a milky gruel.

  Butter was highly coveted in those days, and was often used as currency. Farmhands would get paid in butter, and would trade it for things that they needed or wanted. Rent for land or livestock was also sometimes paid in butter, so wealthy landowners often wound up with mountains of the stuff. Butter was almost always unsalted, so it might have tasted a little bland - but of course the resourceful Icelanders had a remedy for that: let it go sour. This (ahem) enhanced the flavour, and also acted as a preservative. In fact you could keep your butter supplies intact for around two years by using this ingenious method.

  But why this obsession with butter? Well, it was highly coveted because butter is around eighty percent fat, and back in the day, fat was good. Counting calories was not their main concern back then - at least not the way we do it today. Nowadays we try to keep the count low. Back then, they tried to keep it high. And fatty foods were in great demand in a country where high-calorie fare was not readily available, but where tons of energy was required just to cope with the daily business of living.

  On large farms where many people lived, each worker would receive a certain amount of fish and butter with which they would have to make do for an entire week. In other words, they had to make it last. None of this wolfing down your ration on the first day, unless you wanted to starve for the next six or so. And naturally the women got shafted. Typically a man would receive five kilograms of dried fish for the week, and 1.75 kg of butter. Female workers got about a quarter of that amount. Sure, the menfolk probably did a bit more heavy lifting, but even so. I’m sure the women had to do plenty of work that required serious exertion.

  So the women got the short end of the stick in this regard, though with one notable exception: the mistress of the house got to dole out the rations. Hers was the power to feed or starve. If she liked you, she might slip you a little extra. If she did not ... well, let’s just say that being on her bad side was not a situation that anybody relished.

  32 Grains and subs

  Food in Iceland was not always as dreadfully scarce as it would later become. When the first settlers arrived, not only did they find plenty of forest, they were also able to grow wheat and other grains. Then, as we know, forests were chopped down, mini-ice age came, there was no more firewood, people had to stop taking saunas, everyone moved in together, got lice, and proceeded to starve.

  By 1550, wheat flour was a commodity virtually unheard of in Iceland. When the populace did manage to get a hold of some, it came via the Danish overlords and was usually infested with maggots or similar delights. Not to mention that it was ridiculously expensive. And if people disliked the goods, they couldn’t just skip off to the other flour seller down the road. There wasn’t one. The Danes had a monopoly. They called the shots.

  Because it was so precious, the Nicelanders came up with ways of making their flour last. They mixed it with dried seaweed, or moss, or both. (Aside: this moss of which I speak - called fjallagrös - is not of the squishy green or grey variety that you see all over Iceland, but is generally quite hard and dry and chew-able, with a decidedly bitter taste. In later years it has been found to have all these healing properties that no one had had any idea about in the old days. So in fact the Icelanders were imbibing something highly nutritious when they thought they were just eating the equivalent of dried cardboard in order to survive. Talk about a hvalreki!)

  Naturally this dearth of grain meant that bread and other flour-based comestibles were a major luxury. Which is why they came up with laufabrauð - “leaf bread”. Laufabrauð are very thin, round pieces of bread ... so thin, in fact, that they hardly deserve to be called “bread”. They’re more like tortillas, only the laufabrauð are decorated with pretty cut-out designs and then deep-fried until crispy. Akin to Indian papadums, perhaps, only without the spices (and prettier).

  Today laufabrauð are a cherished delicacy at Christmas and are normally eaten with the traditional hangikjöt, or smoked lamb. Indeed, some families have a long-standing tradition whereby they gather together in the lead-up to Christmas to make laufabrauð (whereas the rest of us just fetch them from the supermarket).

  This thriftiness in the grain department is also how the ubiquitous flatkökur - “flat cakes” - came into being. As the name suggests these are flat, round cakes (though in the packages you buy nowadays they’re usually cut in two so they’re shaped like half-moons), made of rye and cooked on a skillet until they’re slightly burnt. You can even buy them with Iceland moss, for an extra dose of nutrition. (Tip: don’t buy them unless they’re made the same day, preferably if they’re still warm in the packet. Eat with butter and hangikjöt for best results.)

  Last but not least there are the beloved Icelandic pancakes, or pönnukökur. These are more like French crêpes than American pancakes, for the reasons stated above. They are usually sprinkled with sugar before being rolled up and served, or spread with jam and whipped cream before being folded over twice. Their popularity has not waned over the centuries, and I don’t believe an Icelander exists who doesn’t love them. Apart from their deliciousness, they are somehow intricately tied up with our national identity. Plus, most of us associate them with happy times in our lives. Pönnukökur, you see, still tend to be made when there is something to celebrate.

  33 The absent food group

  There was one food group notoriously absent in the Iceland of yore: fruits and vegetables. And with good reason: there were precious few vegetables available in the old days, and no fruits. None. Not even imported fruits, because ... well, I’m sure you can guess. By the time they travelled all the way to Iceland from more temperate climes they were a squishy, repulsive mess.

  Even in my early childhood in the 1960s, fruit was pretty scarce. The only fruit I remember seeing were bananas, oranges and apples. Red apples. Yellow apples, which the Icelanders always called green apples, came later. They were pretty expensive, and boy, were they a treat. If you wanted to offer someone something really good, you’d offer them a green apple.

  So with this absence of fruits and veggies, how did the Icelanders manage to keep the doctor away?

  Partly with the aforementioned Iceland moss. That, and the seaweed. Plus, there is this plant called scurvywort that grows all over the country and has loads of vitamin C. As the name implies, it helps fight scurvy, and played a huge role in maintaining the health of the Icelanders of old. In fact it is probably the main reason why the Icelanders had such good teeth until sugar, the scourge of dental hygiene anywhere, came to the country.

  So yeah, basically the Icelandic people survived by eating grass.

  And evidently that sufficed. Because even after the Icelanders were introduced to potatoes, which you’d think would be eagerly embraced for their nutritional value, they were slow to change their ways. Like with the oil lamps, they were dismissive of this newfangled produce. Growing potatoes took up too much space. Space that could b
e used to make hay. Finally a campaign was launched in the 17th century extolling the virtues of the humble potato, and the Icelanders - always receptive to the forces of marketing - began to come around. They haven’t looked back since.

  34 Annihilation of the pearly whites

  So yes, the Icelanders preserved their pearly whites remarkably well. We know this because human skulls have been excavated from way, way back, and they still have the teeth very much intact. Granted, their owners might never have scored a Colgate commercial, but their teeth were able to get the masticating done, and done well.

  And then came the evil substance SUGAR. The Icelandic populace fell for it hook, line and sinker. Sugar quickly became the indispensable commodity, right up there with coffee, tobacco and a nip of Brennivín (Icelandic liquor, colloqually referred to as Black Death).

  And like most vices, sugar left a trail of destruction in its wake. For the first time, the natives came to know the agony of dental decay and diseased gums.

  This called for creative remedies to help numb the pain. One favoured method was to break off the tooth of a mouse and stick it into the gum next to the offending tooth. Another was to place the faeces of a year-old male child in the same spot. (I gather the feces of female children didn’t have the same healing properties.) Or placing the tooth of a dead man next to the decayed tooth. Or pulverising the teeth of a dog, and ingesting the powder. (I’m guessing there were a lot of toothless dogs around.) Then, if all else failed, you could always remove the aching tooth and make your own implant using the tooth of a corpse. (No, I am not making this up.)