I’ve only been to Iceland once, and I’m not sure it counts: In the 6 hours I spent there, I never left the airport. However, I did spend enough time inside the small, but free-flowing structure to enjoy the uninterrupted views of the intimate and unique township surrounding the International airport at Reykjavik through some of the many windows lining the corridors, bathing the architecture with their austere northern light.
I was traveling with a group (for a change) just heading back to West-by-God after a two-week sojourn in France. I was constantly getting grief from everyone in the group because, while I fancied myself a brave, free-spirited-world-travelling-troubadour, always willing to try anything once, I had spent the last couple of weeks trying to quit smoking cigarettes and gorging myself on nothing but wine, French bread and fois gras, not to mention picking up a few extra pounds along the way. I mean come on! Who ever heard of anyone not smoking in France!
To be fair to myself, I do travel a lot and I have done my share of eating strange foods; and I do have a method, albeit a simple one: if I see someone eating something, and it’s obviously an authentic food (and not some random dirt-eating-fool-attempt-at-strangeness), I just eat it. No thinking, mostly no regrets; I simply put the food in my mouth, chew it (or not) and swallow. Sometimes I taste with my mouth, and sometimes, with the other end, I regret.
I grew up in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia and so of course, as I’ve described my technique above, I’ve had the full array of rattlesnake, frog legs and all manner of mountain oysters (and if you don’t know what those are, make sure you find out before trying them). However, I’ve also eaten a variety of insects and grubs, deep fried earthworms, monkey’s brain (as well as a lot of other kinds), cat, dog, dehydrated balls of curdled yogurt, crazy cheese and insane haggis. I’ve even eaten the pure fat from the brazened-by-blowtorch backside of freshly slaughtered goat on the streets of Kandahar. And when I say fresh, I mean it was killed just seconds before, right in front of me.
See, throughout my life, I’ve just wanted to experience all that I can in the time that I have. As such, I’ve always felt that one of the most complete forms of experience comes through total emersion in a foreign culture- this of course means eating whatever one’s hosts are eating. So when the folks that you’re with start eating the penis of a full-grown bull, well, I feel obliged to follow suit and try it out for myself. Generally speaking, I usually find at least something that I can relate to enjoyment- or at least I can understand why people are eating it, even if I don’t want to come into contact with that particular semi-edible substance ever again. And even when that first bite incites fight or flight reflexes, I can usually at least appreciate the origin or necessities of the culture’s desire to prepare and ingest some particular fare and force myself to swallow. (So, I’m not proud, but) Only once have I taken a bite of something and just as quickly spit it right back out.
Icelandic people, or at least the airline stewards and stewardesses traipsing around the terminal, are beautiful. They are tall, statuesque, and for the short time I was there, it seemed that they carry themselves with the right combination of pride and mutual respect. It also seemed like a prosperous place wherein even the airport shopkeepers were very well dressed and seemingly well educated both generally, as well as on the wares that their shops were selling. As our group was a boisterous one, each of us inclined to enjoy the ‘entire’ trip, inclusive of waiting around in airports, we all mingled around to each of the shops, chatting up fellow passengers and locals alike. Would we have been doing that if we hadn’t just had our original Air France flight cancelled and rescheduled by the none-too-shy Air France staff (for bumping the loud Americans off the overbooked flight) into the Saga-class section of an Icelandic Air 7-5-7 wherein all of our booze was served cold and complementary? Maybe. But I can say that whether or not these reconciliatory libations had found their way into my gullet, had I otherwise heard of Hákarl, I think I would have tried it none the less.
Thinking back, I do realize that during the process that I went through in choosing and thus sampling this traditional cuisine, I broke my own custom; I didn’t actually see anyone eating it. If I would have, I daresay that I might have also seen their expressions and (hopefully) might have again broken tradition and NOT eaten the garbage. It’s hard to say, because in many such an encounter, locals far and wide have stared at me with an ‘oh my god, he’s going to eat it’ expression on their faces right before I wolf down, and generally (relatively speaking) enjoy, the local grub (pun intended?). Would I have hesitated? I’m not sure, but there is a good chance that I would have, given the… um, odor, that this jar of disgust, upon opening, let out.
Let me back up. In the airport, there are gift shops, clothing stores, stationary and newsstands and there is also a little… shop. I wouldn’t call it a convenience store, nor would I call it a gourmet shop. It’s somewhere right in the middle. Or maybe it’s some kind of gourmet convenience store, and its normal clientele simply shy away from Twinkies and Dum-Dums, and generally go for food that actually nourishes your body rather than promoting a slow, Americanized, obesity-related death. I looked around the entire shop, searching for something local, something to remember. Boy, did I find it! I actually had to resort to asking the shopkeeper to recommend a thoroughly local food, one which I could find no where else on earth. She immediately pointed out the small jar of preserved and cubed fish located right by the cash counter. I should have known. Given its location, it had to be a novelty of some kind. But admittedly, I was arrogant. I was simply and completely focused on my newest culinary conquest, aching to get that jar open and its contents past my teeth.
I should point out that after the kindly, well-dressed and middle-aged matron handed me the jar, she did try to warn me off… repeatedly. She told me what it was, how it was prepared, how many weeks the gutted Greenland shark rotted in a hole in the sand, the pressure of its burial expelling the poisonous fluids from the festering flesh and thus rendering the carcass at least non-fatally edible. She even mentioned that I should smell it first, to see if I’d like to move past the olfactory appreciation stage. Then, when she realized that I was going to purchase thisdelicacy, if not from her, from someone, she told me, with what I can only ascribe as a motherly attempt at serious ‘food talk’, to be sure to hold my nose for the first bite. If we’re being honest, I’d even have to say that she tried not to sell it to me, keeping the item in her hand much longer than necessary after I’d given it to her for scanning, bagging and payment. While holding it, she pointed me toward several other ‘traditional and memorable’ Icelandic foodstuffs, no doubt in hopes that I would bend my will. Hell, I don’t know; maybe she was scared that I would sue her business for attempted murder by poison. But, like I said, I was too arrogant to believe that I couldn’t handle it. I was the master of bizarre food, the global traveler, the squatter, the bare-bones backpacker, the man who could sleep in the lice ridden sheets of Sardinian hostels just to sample the 75 year old sour dough bread. Did I care that the cigarette butts and spittle of a thousand gypsies polluted that brew? Hell no! It was ME we were talking about after all and no rotting chunks of North Atlantic shark flesh could put me off the trail of my life’s experience.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Like I said, I finally convinced the woman that I could handle it and she, albeit reluctantly, sold me the jar of whitish cubes along with a pack of crackers. I decided to offer this snack to my fellow travelers. However once I intimated the makeup of the contents of the jar, they all refused to do more than watch me. There’s was a sound choice.
Standing in the very center of the spacious shopping concourse at Reykjavik Airport, I opened the jar. Quickly, I plucked one of the 1-inch cubes out of the jar and onto a cracker. I didn’t give myself time to smell anything, just in case. After all, I didn’t want my compatriots to see my hesitance or disappoint the furtive glances of the shopkeeper, no doubt checking on me to make sure I didn’t pass out. I opened my mouth. Did I see a twinkle in the eyes of passersby, enjoying the spectacle? It touched my tongue. I immediately felt the putrescence in my mind’s eye, its potency such as to pass normal taste bud-based senses in much the same way that a glass of 2005 Boillet-Louis Gevrey Chambertin most pointedly does NOT. This was unexpected. Where was the ebullient traveler, ready for everything, anything? Automatically, I bit into the gummy cube. The cracker did nothing to soak up the horrifying sewer festering in my mouth. And as fast as it went in, it came right back out. It rushed out actually, alongside whatever other bits and bobs of digesting victuals which, until then, were making their merry way through my system. Not anymore.
I was able to hold it down to one spew, but the full jar of fish was not nearly empty enough to catch all of my sick. And to add insult to injury, my ‘friends’, rather than rushing to my aid (and helping me get something to clean it up), abandoned ship and left me to make a mad dash to the restroom to clean myself up, and then clean up the mess I’d left in the middle of the terminal. Can you blame them? I’ll spare you the details, shall I?
Anyhow, nothing is as bad as that rotten fish taste. And oh how it lingers on the palate. I can only wish that the flavor left me as quickly as the knowing looks and sideways murmuring I’d felt from the other travelers, who were as pointedly avoiding staring at me as there were treading on the newest stain on the thick carpet. On the flight home, it took multiple airline sized bottles of rot-gut whisky just to mask the taste in my mouth enough to feel comfortable enough to speak to someone while looking at them, even given the spacious seating. But in the end, it did go away, even if it had lingered long enough to ruin what would have been an otherwise very enjoyable meal, not even considering the fact that it was on an airplane. Of course, I still get jibed by my comrades from time to time, but looking back, it I am starting to believe that it was just the procedure that got messed up. (read: when it came down to it, I’d messed up). I didn’t respect the food, the culture; I only disrespected myself in my hurried attempt to ‘experience’ that great land’s fares.
If I ever get back to that island, I’ll consider trying it again. No, really, listen: if it’s done right, with proper respect, in the right atmosphere. If I can experience it in the company of the real people of Iceland, the people who caught the fish and spent months preparing it. And with a traditional Icelandic meal, or in some beer hall by the water. And if perhaps it was followed by a shot of Iceland’s famous Black Death liqueur, Brennivin, I do believe that it would be an experience worth having. They say it’s an acquired taste and that must be true. However, unless you’re in it for the experience, traveler, be wary, and only attempt to acquire this taste if you really, really mean it. Because even though this shark is long dead, it still has a deadly bite.
