Iceland tourist information

Important parts of Icelandic cuisine are fish, being in an area where fish is plentiful, lamb and dairy. Popular foods in Iceland include skyr, hangikjot (smoked lamb), kleinur, laufabrauo and bollur. porramatur is the Icelandic national food.

Iceland offers a fine variety of all kinds of foods produced locally. The quality is excellent, in part because of a very clean environment.

Fish
Fish dishes in Iceland include Icelandic fish, caught in the waters of the North Atlantic, which have established a reputation for its superb quality and delicious taste world-wide. Fresh fish can be had all the year round, as can unsalted stockfish. Icelanders eat mostly haddock, plaice, halibut, herring and shrimp.

Meat
Perhaps the best is lamb meat (Icelandic: lambakjot), mostly because the sheep range freely in the mountains. Iceland has strict regulations relating to meat production and the use of hormones is strictly forbidden. Poultry farming is considerable in Iceland. The most common types of bird reared are chicken, duck and turkey. Certain species of wild birds are hunted, including geese ducks and ptarmigan.

Dairy products
Dairy products are very important to Icelanders. In fact, the average Icelander eats about 100 gallons of dairy products in one year. A wide range of cheeses and other dairy products are made in Iceland. There are over 80 types of cheese made, some of which have won international awards. Skyr (which is something between yogurt and the German "Quark") and mysa (whey) are specialities that have been made in farms through the centuries in Iceland.

Fruits and vegetables
Even though Iceland is situated near the Arctic Circle, many garden vegetables are grown outside, including cabbage and potatoes. Some other vegetables, fruits and flowers are grown in geothermally heated greenhouses.

Porramatur
Iceland has a range of traditional foods, known as porramatur, which are enjoyed seasonally from January to March. These traditional foods include smoked and salted lamb, singed sheep heads, dried fish, smoked and pickled salmon, cured shark and various other delicacies. Breads include laufabrauo (deep-fried paper-thin bread), kleinur (similar to doughnuts) and rye pancakes.

Hakarl
Hakarl (meaning 'shark' in Icelandic) is rotten shark meat. It is part of the porramatur, the traditional seasonal Icelandic foods. It is known for its pungent taste and smell of ammonia. As such, eating hakarl is assoiciated with hardiness and strength. It is often accompanied by brennivin, a local schnapps.

Some famous Icelanders include alternative rock band The Sugarcubes; its singer Björk; rap-rock group Quarashi; artist collective GusGus; avant-garde rock band Sigur Rós; and novelist Halldór Laxness, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955. Although raised and educated in Scotland, TV presenter Magnus Magnusson was born in Reykjavík.

Iceland's literacy rate is among the highest in the world, and a love of literature, art, chess, and other intellectual pursuits is widespread.

An important key to understanding Icelanders and their culture (and which differentiates them from many contemporary Nordic peoples) is the high importance they place on the traits of independence and self-reliance. Icelanders are proud of their Viking heritage and Icelandic language. Modern Icelandic remains close to the Old Norse spoken in the Viking Age.

Icelandic society and culture has a high degree of gender equality, with many women in leadership positions in government and business. Women retain their names after marriage, since Icelanders generally do not use surnames but patronyms or (in certain cases) matronyms.

One of the most popular activities in Iceland is visiting the geothermal spas and pools that can be found all around the country. They are popular with tourists as well.

Iceland offers wide varieties of traditional cuisine. Þorramatur (food of the þorri) is the Icelandic national food. Nowadays þorramatur is mostly eaten during the ancient Nordic month of þorri, in January and February, as a tribute to old culture. Þorramatur consists of many different types of food, e.g. pickled ram's testicles, putrified shark, scorched sheep heads, scorched sheep's head jam, blood pudding and dried fish (often cod or haddock) with butter.