Monday Ice: Þorrablót

It is that time of the year again when you walk into the supermarket and the freezer is full of sheep heads and a whole lot of other tasty delicacies...aagh þorrablót!

Eating Fermented Shark in Iceland from Karla Jacobs on Vimeo.

Monday Ice: Þorrablót

We are now into March and the season of Þorrablót has passed thank goodness (celebrated during the month of February) but this little video will explain what you have missed.  I have been to a few Þorrablót meals and have tasted everything, I have no need to try the hákarl (fermented shark) ever again! 

Lazy Days!

The Þorroblót last Saturday night heralded the start of a very lazy week, the hallway is half finished, I should have painted the door frames and doors by now but just haven't...no excuse really! 

If you want to know what a Þorroblót is checkout this post and this one from last year.  This year I have to say the food was more to my taste, Sigga took pity on us foreigners and prepared sushi and chicken wings and instead of the sheeps head we had sheeps head paté made by Kristin which was quite tasty.  Patricia (a food scientist) marinated the sheeps testicals, rotten shark and whale in a mixture of various herbs and spices which I think certainly improved their original flavours, although her partner Bjarki was not so sure, as his idea of heaven is the traditional þorroblót food...what can I say...each to their own!

 Our array of food...you can see the sushi in the far left corner and Patricia's marinade in the squarish container, the chicken wings are hidden from public view, we were already treading dangerous ground with the sushi!

Our little group was multinational

L-R Patricia (from Brazil) and Annabell (from France)

L-R Sigga and Bjarki (both from Iceland but they have lived overseas before, Sigga in Australia and Germany and Bjarki in Japan where he met his lovely Patricia) and of course the missing Aussie photographer.  And to make it truly an international event we all ate with chopsticks.

The view from my windows are amazing and they entice me outdoors, so this week I have been on a few long walks. Wednesday morning after standing at the kitchen window admiring the vista of the fjord I had the irresistible urge to walk along the shoreline, the temperature was about -7c but it felt wonderful, the air here is amazing. That was the first thing I noticed when I stepped outside the airport after arrival...the air is just so phenomenally clean and fresh and invigorating.  I always feel rejuvenated after a good walk here.  I have posted too many pictures of inside lately so here are a few of the outdoors...the landscape here never fails to take my breath away.

The shore here is covered in pebbles/rocks of all colour and size

I am still picking up heart shaped ones and went home with my pockets bulging...the large one is bigger than my fist.

The weather on Thursday was an absolutely magnificent 4c, the sky was blue, the sun was out and the air was still, so this time I walked up over the graveyard and down the other side with Freyja (who missed out on the walk the day before...I felt guilty and had to make it up to her).

 The view of the town from the graveyard

 Sheep here are very curious animals and as soon as they see you they come closer to check you out.

Whilst walking, Freyja and I encountered a man on horseback taking his trusty steed for a little tölt. Freyja was very good only making a half hearted bark at him.

The tölt is so smooth the rider barely moves up and down, this is my style of horseriding suitable for young and old...hopefully in the summer I get to have a go.

The days here are getting longer and before I know it there will be nearly 24 hrs of daylight, at the moment sunrise is around 9.30am and sunset about 5.30pm.

Monday Ice: Everyday life singing

Singing is a national past time in Iceland, people break out in song on a regular basis especially at social gatherings such as the community celebration of Þorrablót and most towns no matter how small seem to have a choir of some description. Of course at Christmas time these choirs come out in force and last year I was able to witness the beautiful melodic voices of one in Sauðárkrókur.  I also fondly remember a group of guests at Ross and Olga's wedding breaking into song at Reykir in the evening after the barbecue. 

Apparently there are approximately 87 music schools scattered around Iceland, for such a small country this is quite a number.

This first video is one I found on Google videos and I know people tell me that Iceland's population is small and everybody is related somehow and that there is much less than 6 degrees of separation in Iceland.  Well imagine my surprise when I recognised most of the participants in this video of a family reunion singing old Icelandic songs in a tent on a mountain...my daughter inlaw Olga is front and centre surrounded by her family, many of whom I met earlier this year.

Sigga please let me know where and when this was...I spied Anja there also!

The next one is of a group of horsemen and women singing and drinking, before they saddle up for the final stage of the horse roundup in Skagafjördur. 

Horses riding must stimulate some music nerve endings... so here are a couple more.

And to finish off here is an old icelandic song played on a traditional Icelandic instrument.

Another Þorrablót

Well on Saturday night I attended the town's Þorrablót. Besides the traditional Icelandic food which you have all read about in a previous blog, this also had lots of singing, jokes, music and dancing, plus big screen with a slideshow of historic and contemporary photographs of the town and its residents. Also on TV that night was the final voting selection of the Icelandic entrant in the 2010 Eurovision song contest and there was even a live cross to this Saudarkroker Þorrablót on the show.

The event was held in the sports arena and was packed with over 500 of the towns folk. This year the organization committee were those born in 1957, next year it is the 1958ers turn...as this is my year who knows I may end up on the committee if I am here. The food and alcohol were BYO.

Every Icelandic household has at least one of these wooden trays which the BYO food was brought to the event on. I have seen heaps of these at the local supermarket and had wondered why they would have a big market for such an item...now I know!

The entertainment was provided in the form of speeches and comedy send ups of local personalities and events that happened during the previous year. The jokes must have been good as everyone laughed continuously.

This is a picture shown on the big screen of Olga's amma's (Kristin) house that I am staying in at the moment...it originally belonged to her husband's parents....since this photo there has been a small extension to the right. The little white house in the picture that heads this blog is what it looks like today. (Sorry about the headshot)
This is a photo of the main street that I am staying on back around the early 1900's, many of the houses are still standing today.

Here are a of short, poor quality videos from my little camera....but it will give you the idea what the whole evening was like....there was lots of singing like this throughout the event. The tune is very familiar on the first video but the words are different....I think our version maybe A Bicycle Built for Two.

Here is one of the finalists for the Icelandic entrant in the Eurovision song festival. This young man lives in the area and we were requested to vote for him with the promise that if he won he would come to the town and sing for free. Unfortunately that won't happen as he was the runner up.

The evening finished off with several hours of dancing till around 3am.

As Joanna Lumley said "I can die happy now"

Well last night we got to see the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis which was absolutely fantastic, we drove up to the graveyard where there were no town lights to diminish the experience, it lasted for several hours building up with intensity as the time went on.  I didn't have my camera set at the right shutter speed so did not get any photos, however I have pinched a couple of Olga's which turned out quite nicely.  The camera is now set correctly and if they come again I am ready!

 

Yesterday we also took a drive to Akureyri which is the largest town outside of the capital Reykjavik with a population of around 17,000...just a tad smaller than Geraldton.  The drive there is absolutely spectacular with mountains on each side of the road and takes a bit over 2 hours to get there.

The snow had started to melt on some mountains creating zebra patterns.  These pics are taken whilst in a moving car and through a dirty window.

However, in some areas the mountains were still covered with snow and the fjords were frozen.

The town of Akureyri has some great views from the main shopping area.  This is a photo from the carpark.

 The town also has a logo which is a red heart and heart stickers are on many of the shop windows and doors, also traffic lights.

 

Also once again the colour blue appears!

Last Sunday Olga's family have a get together once a month and this month Olga's amma, Kristin provided a traditional Icelandic feast known as Þorrablót, which consisted of such tasty delights as, sheeps heads, rotton shark, whale, diced pickled rams testicles, I tasted everything except the whale, after the rotton shark I could not stomach it, however, the rams testicles were not too bad!

Fortunately there was still plenty other food I could fill up on, smoked lamb, lamb cutlets, dried fish and homemade Rye bread which is delicious with lots of butter of course...thank goodness I have'nt come across a set of scales!!!

Lambs head!

Looks innocent enough but looks can deceive, this is the rotton shark which I found to be nearly indigestible!

 After the rotton shark I could not bring myself to try the whale!

But the diced pickled Rams Testicles weren't too bad, they have very much the same texture as sheep's brains, not sure what that might mean!!!