Flavors of Iceland

The cuisine

Traditional food of Iceland

For centuries, Iceland ate what the island could keep. With few grains, almost no firewood and short summers, traditional cooking relied on lamb, fish and milk, and on techniques to preserve food until spring: drying, smoking, fermenting and storing in whey.

Many of these recipes are found across the whole country. Kjötsúpa, a lamb and vegetable soup, and plokkfiskur, mashed fish with potato and white sauce, appear in homes and restaurants from north to south. Rúgbrauð, a dense, slightly sweet rye bread, accompanies fish and butter; in geothermal areas it is baked buried in the warm ground and called hverabrauð.

The calendar is also on the table. In the month of Þorri, in the middle of winter, Icelanders gather for Þorrablót to eat þorramatur, a selection of preserved meats and fish, toasting with brennivín, a caraway schnapps. At Christmas, families in the north keep the custom of cutting and frying laufabrauð, and on December 23 fermented skate, a tradition from the Westfjords, is served across the country.

Each specialty is tied to the region where the tradition comes from or to the whole country when it is common to all Icelanders.