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05/11/10, 05:09 PM
Rotten meat
By SEBASTIAN SMITH
Iceland’s menu goes wild.
ONE thing you won’t hear in Eythor Halldorsson’s restaurant are complaints about the shark being rotten. It’s meant to be.
Months-old, decomposed shark flesh is a delicacy in Iceland, where the traditional menu is as wild as the country of volcanoes and icy waters.
Old meals: Chef Eythor Halldorsson preparing a platter of traditional Icelandic produce, all ancient dishes that Halldorsson believes have a place on the modern table.
Halldorsson, chef at the Icelandic Bar restaurant in the centre of the capital Reykjavik, serves the dish, called hakarl, in a sealed jar – “to stop the aroma escaping.”
That aroma, the diner soon discovers, is between ammonia and blue cheese. So is the taste, accompanied by fishy texture and a burning fizz on the tongue. The potato vodka called Brennevin that follows is part palette cleanser, part anaesthetic.
And hakarl is only one corner of Iceland’s exotic culinary landscape. Whale, puffin, reindeer, horse, ram’s testicles and entire sheep’s heads are all in the repertoire – not food for the squeamish, but ancient dishes that Halldorsson believes have a place on the modern table. “I think it’s important to stick to your roots,” he says.
Vikings would probably approve of the menu at Icelandic Bar, which opened a year ago. But they’d gasp at the small portions, inventive uses of herbs and artistic arrangements on the plates that accent Icelandic Bar’s nouvelle cuisine style.
Stomach this: Two bite-size hakarl or decomposed shark flesh, and potato vodka chaser called Brennevin, are presented at the Icelandic Bar restaurant in Reykjavik.
Halldorsson, just 27, says he doesn’t want simply to reheat the methods of his parents’ generation where boiled cod or puffin and overcooked whale were the norm.
That bid to add elegance to the exotic could also be the only way to save this gastronomic heritage from oblivion in a country moving from the isolation of the north Atlantic into the globalised, fast-food world.
Halldorsson, whose restaurant only opened a year ago, is passionate about his calling. Pointing at a map of Iceland, he explains how this island of just 317,000 people under the Arctic Circle abounds with fresh, organic food, nearly all of it having to be caught, fished or shot.
Much of what he serves is first smoked, since that was a principal method for preserving food in former times.
The shark is different, being first buried under gravel for two months to drain acids produced by the animal’s urine, then hung up for another long spell.
Halldorsson said the Icelandic pop singer Bjork is a fan of the outlandish fare. “She always eats here when she’s in Reykjavik.” – AFP
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/5/11/lifeliving/6160020&sec=lifeliving
By SEBASTIAN SMITH
Iceland’s menu goes wild.
ONE thing you won’t hear in Eythor Halldorsson’s restaurant are complaints about the shark being rotten. It’s meant to be.
Months-old, decomposed shark flesh is a delicacy in Iceland, where the traditional menu is as wild as the country of volcanoes and icy waters.
Old meals: Chef Eythor Halldorsson preparing a platter of traditional Icelandic produce, all ancient dishes that Halldorsson believes have a place on the modern table.
Halldorsson, chef at the Icelandic Bar restaurant in the centre of the capital Reykjavik, serves the dish, called hakarl, in a sealed jar – “to stop the aroma escaping.”
That aroma, the diner soon discovers, is between ammonia and blue cheese. So is the taste, accompanied by fishy texture and a burning fizz on the tongue. The potato vodka called Brennevin that follows is part palette cleanser, part anaesthetic.
And hakarl is only one corner of Iceland’s exotic culinary landscape. Whale, puffin, reindeer, horse, ram’s testicles and entire sheep’s heads are all in the repertoire – not food for the squeamish, but ancient dishes that Halldorsson believes have a place on the modern table. “I think it’s important to stick to your roots,” he says.
Vikings would probably approve of the menu at Icelandic Bar, which opened a year ago. But they’d gasp at the small portions, inventive uses of herbs and artistic arrangements on the plates that accent Icelandic Bar’s nouvelle cuisine style.
Stomach this: Two bite-size hakarl or decomposed shark flesh, and potato vodka chaser called Brennevin, are presented at the Icelandic Bar restaurant in Reykjavik.
Halldorsson, just 27, says he doesn’t want simply to reheat the methods of his parents’ generation where boiled cod or puffin and overcooked whale were the norm.
That bid to add elegance to the exotic could also be the only way to save this gastronomic heritage from oblivion in a country moving from the isolation of the north Atlantic into the globalised, fast-food world.
Halldorsson, whose restaurant only opened a year ago, is passionate about his calling. Pointing at a map of Iceland, he explains how this island of just 317,000 people under the Arctic Circle abounds with fresh, organic food, nearly all of it having to be caught, fished or shot.
Much of what he serves is first smoked, since that was a principal method for preserving food in former times.
The shark is different, being first buried under gravel for two months to drain acids produced by the animal’s urine, then hung up for another long spell.
Halldorsson said the Icelandic pop singer Bjork is a fan of the outlandish fare. “She always eats here when she’s in Reykjavik.” – AFP
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/5/11/lifeliving/6160020&sec=lifeliving