It is no longer surprising that Iceland prides itself as one country with varieties of excellent meals. Though expensive, tourists still find their way of traveling to Iceland for eating their food.
Fermented shark, Hákarl, or rotten shark as people often refer to it is possibly the most famous dish in Iceland. Somehow, out of all the delicious and fresh ingredients Iceland offers and the organically greenhouse-grown vegetables and fruits this peculiar phenomenon became the token food for our beloved country.
Hákarl is a national dish of Iceland comprising a Greenland shark or other sleeper shark which has been cured with a particular fermentation process and hung to dry for four to five months. It has a strong ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste, making hákarl a gained taste.
Fermented shark is readily available in Icelandic stores and maybe eaten year-round, but is most often served as part of a þorramatur, a selection of traditional Icelandic food served at the midwinter festival þorrablót. Fermented shark contains an enormous amount of ammonia and has a strong smell, similar to many cleaning products.
They often serve it in cubes on toothpicks. Those new to it may gag involuntarily on the first attempt to eat it because of the high ammonia content. First-timers are sometimes advised to pinch their nose while taking the first bite, as the smell is much stronger than the taste. They often eat it with a shot of the local spirit, an akvavit called brennivín.
The fermentation of shark meat can be traced back to the Viking age, but this outlandish act of preserving food was just one of the many steps Icelanders took to make sure they had enough to go on throughout the year.
Today fermented shark or “kæstur hákarl” is what they call it in Icelandic is a way for Icelanders to stay in touch with their roots and ancestry. However, once we have processed the shark the shark is no longer dangerous and consumer-friendly, at least for those without a sense of smell.
The traditional Icelandic method of fermentation is to first gut and behead the beast, second is to place it in a shallow hole that has been dug in gravelly sand. They then rest the now cleaned cavity on a small mound of sand and the shark later covered with sand and gravel.
The third and last step is then to lay stones on top of the sand, which is done to press the shark. This way fluids are better released from the shark they shorten the actual fermentation process. Now the shark is left to dry for about 6-18 weeks, depending on the season in which this course is taken.
The preparation of “kæstur hákarl” is a time-consuming process as what follows after this curing period is the drying period. The shark is at this point cut into pieces and hung to dry.
