I might be pointing out the obvious here, but when Iceland was colonised, there was no infrastructure, no shops and no resources other than what you were able to take of the land or produce yourself. Food-wise, this means that most families would eat only what they grew and harvested, bred, raised and butchered themselves. Not everything is available all year round though and they had to find ways to make things keep that usually spoil within a few days.
But how did the Vikings preserve their food? With no refrigeration to speak of (insert your favourite joke about the "ice" in Iceland here) and salt being largely unaffordable, this leaves drying, smoking and pickling. Smoking also requires additional salt for long-term preservation and while lots of smoked meats are available, such as the yummy Hangikjöt (smoked lamb), these usually require additional refrigeration or will only keep for a few days, unless further measures are taken.
One of the things they came up with is pickling in sour whey. This allowed them to store highly perishable foodstuffs such as meat for a year or longer, making it an efficient means of preservation.
Nowadays, we associate whey with athletes' diets and protein shakes, it comes in all kinds of flavours and colours and is generally non-threatening. I have tried multiple products over the years and have usually been quite pleased with the refreshing taste. Therefore, when I learned that there was an Icelandic midwinter festival involving lots of foods that were preserved in whey, I was looking forward to tasting them, being certain that I would like them. Before I go further into the sour whey thing, let me quickly introduce you to this festival.
It's called Þorrablót and takes place from mid January to February, which corresponds to the old Nordic month Þorri. Every community has it's own gathering where people bring traditional foods and a committee is in charge of the entertainment, usually including speeches, sketches and making fun of the events in the community in the past year. There is lots of merrymaking, drinking, fun and dancing, along with the traditional food.
Back to the food, there is a large variety of things people will enjoy during the festival and the whey preserves are just one kind, but these made a particular impression on me, so we'll focus on them. My lovely friend Judith brought me a plate of food samples from one of her Þorrablóts which included headcheese, hangikjöt, two kinds of sheep's paté (one of them preserved in whey), sour whale fat and jellied sheep's testicles preserved in whey. As I'd already had sheep's head, the headcheese wasn't a big problem for me to eat (apart from the fact that it was really sour and unfortunately not in a good, gherkin kind of way). The hangikjöt I really like and the sheep's paté was also quite nice, at least the one that hadn't been preserved in whey. The jellied sheep's testicles would have been ok-ish, had it not been for the sour whey taste. At that point I had definitely revoked my former opinion that whey preservation was a good idea and that I was going to try it at home.
Do not try this at home.
This is another one of those traditions that is celebrated for the tradition's sake and as part of the country's history, not because everyone loves extremely sour food with a hint of ...well... semen.
Everything on that plate that had not been preserved in whey was really nice and I had already established that I wasn't too fond of the sour whey, but there was one more thing to go. A sizable piece of sour whale fat, also preserved in whey. Now this was a bit of a challenge, aside from the fact that I tried to avoid ending up with whale on my plate, who wants to bite into pure fat? I did eat it and I can honestly say that it was the most awful thing I have ever tasted. Gooey, chewy glibber with an extremely sour taste.
Dear people of Iceland, I love your beautiful country, I'm about to make it my home and I enjoy pushing my own culinary boundaries, but this I.Will.Not.Eat.Again. Bring on the fermented stingray, bring on the sour whey stuff, if you must, but no more sour whale fat for me. Ever.
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