FOOD

"Always rise
  to an early meal,
  but eat your fill before a feast
  If you're hungry
  you have no time
  to talk at the table."

I almost forgot a big important part of any trip.  Food.  I was surprised at how Icelandic the food was!  Weird statement, but they pretty much stick to what's available....fish, fish...oh yeah....fish.  We had fish almost every night...and it was great.  Mostly cod, a bit of salmon, and some wonderful char( lake trout).  It was prepared perfectly and we never tired of it. (Speaking for ourselves here)  For the people who were weary of all the fish, there was wonderful lamb...and one night I went that way...because I knew those lambs were "happy lamb" until...well you know.

Since Iceland has to import a lot of fruits and veggies, there wasn't much variety and I did miss lettuce...I mean as in BIG salads as we have here.  They were expensive.  Strangely, we had alot of tomatoes....grown in Iceland.  There is so much geo thermal power that they have built green houses that are perfect for tomatoes...in fact, they are so successful in growing them, that they are going to start EXPORTING tomatoes!   Some of places we stopped had tomato stands with bags of tomatoes one bought on the honor system.  300 krona a bag.....about 2.75. I bought them and ate them for snacks.

LUNCH = SOUP.  I think every lunch we had in Iceland was soup, always accompanied by wonderful homemade bread.  EVERY lunch, because, that is just the way it is in Iceland...soup at lunch.  Of course we had fish stew too and one memorable day we had a lobster soup, which was brought as a shallow bowl with small lobster in it....artfully arranged with herbs and a big hunk of butter or cream.  Then the waiter brought a hot lobster broth and poured it all over the tidbits in the bowl.  Yummy.

We ate alot of Skyr (skeer), mainly for breakfast and dessert.  It is better than yogurt of any kind,very low fat, and packed with protein. Skyr cake was really just whipped skyr with maybe a sprinkling of licorice or fruit on it.  That faked some people out, who were drooling for cake.  I bought a huge bag of licorice to bring home.  Typical Icelandic licorice is "salted".  It is soft and fresh with a hint of salt.  Very delicious.  

As in most of what they do, they use what they have, especially food wise. I never did see a McDonalds, but Subway is big there, with a local menu twist.  Another treat that is indicative of the country is "smoked trout" cured in the ground in geomthermal areas.  They also make a very dark bread that is baked in the hot earth next to the trout.  The pictures of the dark bread with pink fish on it, is this combo, and it is available many many places,  especially in the Northern regions.  The bread is a very dense sweet rye, and it is great.  It feels like a brick when it comes from baking and they slice it thin.