Category: Grub Garage
Well, as we have lots of people from lots of countries on here, let's hear what you all like to eat. Not you personally, but what is considered to be a delicacy in your own country. However horrible that may be considered by the masses. over here of course we have black pudding (commonly made from blood and absolutely revolting) yorkshire pudding (made from pancake batter but baked in the oven and served with rost beef and gravy ... yummy) and I'll add some south african ones in a later post ... come on ... let's hear of them.
Well <grin> since I've been terrorizing people with my descriptions of Icelandic delecacies I should probably contribute.
We have our own brand of black pudding, made from sheep blood and using sheep intenstens as tubes to store the blood flour mixture in. It's not particularly tasty, well I'm not a fan of it but many people back home love it, families get together to make it in the fall during the slaughtering season and, in fact it's called "slaughter", it's extremely cheap and people either fry it with sugar or boil it before they eat it or eat it cold with mashed turnips.
Then we have blackened sheep heads that we boil, the meat tastes a little strange but the eyes and the tounge are actually really good (I've heard the British do something similar with pig heads), sheep hearts are also fantastic and very inexpensive food.
As for the ram's testicles, indeed, we eat them pickled and I personally like them, they taste good, almost like . well like pickles but the texture is certainly a litle strange <grin>.
Rotten shark is probably our most famous snack, the sharks are often caught by fishermen, usually not on purpose but once caught they first have to be buried in sand for 5 to 6 months and then people hang them up either inside or under bridges for another 4 to 5 months. This process converts the led that is naturally in sharks and is poisonous to humans into some other harmless material but of course the meat of the shark is thorroughly rotten this way and that's how we eat it. It tastes a bit like very strong blue cheese and we usually drink schnaps or vodka with it. It's quite an experience for sure.
Then my favorite is snack fish, we simply hang fish (usually haddoc) up in a dry cold dark place for 6 to 8 weeks until it completely dries out, then you eat it with butter or with beer like you would eat potato chips or what they call beef jerkyover here, except this is a lot less salty and actually much more healthy for you, and it keeps forever.
Then specially treated raw horse meat is one of my favorite things for special occasions, it is very expensive and it's not cooked but put in some sort of marinade or preservatives or smoked, it tastes like very pricy parma ham, only a lot better, horse meat in general is actually eaten in Iceland and good horse meat is as good as a filet (and I am not exeggarating here, it really is).
Finally whale meat used to be on most icelandic tables for years until Green Peace made whale hunting almost impossible. That meat isn't particularly great but it's not so bad either. Fortunately we are beginning to ignore the green peace activitists and their uninformed rantings against our right to catch whales and so whale meat is in fact back on the menu *grin*.
And, yes, we have pizza and beef and lasagne and pasta and tacoes too hehe, in fact we hve most American big chain places in Iceland so no need to starve if you come visit.
cheers
-B
Hey, Wildebrew, I thought SugarBaby asked for "unusual" dishes, not "revolting" dishes! :-) And I thought cheese fondue was bad... Reminder to self: If I ever go for lunch with Wildebrew, I shall insist on picking the restaurant--and the country *grin* Seriously, my mom makes this dish that consists of bananas wrapped in parma ham and then baked in a mild curry-cream sauce. It sounds disgusting, but it actually tastes incredibly good.
Hey, Wildebrew, I thought SugarBaby asked for "unusual" dishes, not "revolting" dishes! :-) And I thought cheese fondue was bad... Reminder to self: If I ever go for lunch with Wildebrew, I shall insist on picking the restaurant--and the country *grin* Seriously, my mom makes this dish that consists of bananas wrapped in parma ham and then baked in a mild curry-cream sauce. It sounds disgusting, but it actually tastes incredibly good.