Icelandic foods are usually included in the weirdest and most exotic dishes around the world. Some of its meats are even still controversial these days. However, there are also culinary delights that you’ll badly regret not giving a try. Furthermore, Iceland is well known for its purebred cattle and poultry, along with multiple types of cereal bread, as well as the astonishing amount of seafood.
- Rugbraud – Dark Rye Bread
The Icelandic settlers have two methods of making Rugbraud: overnight baking in a pot placed above the dying embers or burying it next to a hot spring, and it’ll be steamed – which claimed the name hverabraud – hot spring bread.
- Snudur – Sweet Bread
Cinnamon is an excellent ingredient for cold weather, isn’t it? Snudur is a soft rolled bread that is filled with cinnamon and glazed with chocolate, vanilla, caramel, or sometimes just simply sprinkled with sugar.
Snudur has become a common bread that you can find in almost any bakery store in Iceland nowadays. However, its origin is still not yet to be found today.
- Pylsa – The Icelandic Hot Dog
Traditionally, the hot dog is made of equal parts of pork and beef or lamb. Combined with pylsa are multiple sauces, but Icelandic sweet mustard sauce is the major addition that makes it stand out.
- Svid – Sheep Head
Like most cultural cuisines, Iceland owns some less appealing dishes, and one of the most well-known is svid – boiled or smoked sheep heads. Similarly, this is also a well-known food in Norwegian cuisine, which use a whole head of a sheep to cook. But in Iceland, Svid is also smoked in the tadreykt method like hangikjot and is usually served in a half-cut. Superstitious legend has it, eating the ears of svid is taboo since the eater can be accused of thief sins if the sheep’s owner marks are removed.
- Hrutspungar – Pickled Ram Testicles
In Icelandic culture, hrutspungar is served with svid, rugbraud, and other traditional foods in the mid-winter festival, like a buffet. Experiencing hrustpungar is like a roller coaster; the appeal is good until you know what’s in it and then pulled in again by the delicious taste.
- Hakarl – Fermented Shark
Hakarl is mostly made of Greenland sharks. Though the meat is poisonous, it’s safe to eat after a delicate fermenting process and hung up for 4 to 5 months. Nowadays, hakarl is often served as an alcohol bait that is combined with butter.
- Hval – Whale Meats
At the bottom of the seafood category, whale meat is a controversial food of Iceland, but still, you can find some restaurants that serve dishes if you want to try them out. The locals’ most favorite one is whale steak.
- Bragdarefur – Ice Cream
As mentioned above, Icelanders are heavy sweet lovers. Ice cream is also their favorite dessert and perhaps even among the most loved food. You can easily find an Icelander heading to an ice cream store in the middle of a snowstorm.
Ice cream stores and stalls are also available throughout the region. Their favorite way to serve ice cream is bragdarefur – ice cream glazed with caramel or chocolate and topped with fruits or nuts.
- Ponnukokur – Icelandic Pancake
Though almost every region has its own pancake, ponnukokur is among the best versions worldwide. You will notice that ponnu kokur is larger yet thinner and less dense in comparison with what is abundant in U.S cuisine.
It is often used with skyr for Icelandic breakfast recipes. However, you can have a ponnukokur throughout the day, depending on what you’ve wrapped it with. Stuff with eggs for lunch meals or fill with jam and whipped cream for desserts; options are endless.
- Hrisgrjonagrautur – Rice pudding
This Icelandic dessert is a typical dish made from the utilization of leftovers. Hrisgrjonagrautur often is a combination of leftover rice or bread with sweetened milk. Sometimes the Icelanders also substitute sugar with salt to create a lunch meal. As with other Nordic regions, Iceland has its own recipes for rice pudding. However, the most famous one is topped with ground sugar and cinnamon, usually served at the very end of the year – also called Yule pudding or ‘jolagrautur
