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How dried fish is made in Iceland
- uwuhn 7y agoSoo I've never had fish prepared this way. Where's the best place to buy it in/near SF, or to order from?
- bifrost 7y agoMy fave spot for interesting dried fish in SF is "New World Market" on Geary in the Richmond district. Its pretty good but slightly confusing if you don't speak russian.
- uwuhn 7y agoI'll check it out, what should I ask for? Do they call it hardfiskur or is there a Russian word for the equivalent?
- bifrost 7y agoHonestly I'd just recommend looking around for it because nobody will help you, they have pretty Soviet customer service. The food there though is soooo gooood. If you like Sauerkraut go up the street to Seakor too, they make their own oldworld style.
- gleb 7y agoVobla or taranka. Do expect it to be very salty.
- bifrost 7y agoAFAIK Vobla is typically one specific fish, namely the "Caspian Roach". That said, its pretty tasty. If you get some there pick up some of the beer as well.
- gleb 7y agoI am impressed with your depth of knowledge of dried Russian fish :-) Both of these words can refer to either specific species of fish, or to the method of preservation, depending on the region. Whichever word you use, the sales person in that store is sure to rudely point out your mistake. Like you said, the Soviet level of service is part of the experience.
- armenarmen 7y agomaybe something like "salonaya reeb?"
- exhilaration 7y agoAnyone know if we can get this in the U.S.?
- jandrese 7y agoKilljoys at the FDA would probably make it difficult to import.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoKatsuobushi (the basis of bonito flakes and dashi) is prepared in a similar way. It is available in the US.
- cr1895 7y agoIsn't that smoked?
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoYes. But it is finished by air drying after fungus innoculation. There is just as much of a pathogen concern.
- Nihilartikel 7y agoI certainly haven't tried it myself, but um.. I think that customs usually misses it if you're ever entering the states from Iceland and innocently miss it from your declarations.
- bacon_waffle 7y agoI brought a bag of it back through Boston IIRC, about 15 years ago. It wasn't a problem and I'm sure they could smell it through the two layers of plastic bags and my backpack. Had a lot of fun with my hardfiskur - I had to keep it in a big glass jar so the housemates wouldn't be too grossed out by it, but it was a great treat every now and then with a bit of butter as discussed elsewhere. But, perhaps the customs person just took pity on younger-and-dumber me, who had been out on the town in Reykjavik for about two days, trying to keep up with an Icelandic friend showing off the night life there...
- itchynosedev 7y agoThis was our preferred snack on our road trip through Iceland in deep winter. This fish fills you very quickly, doesn't produce the "heavy" feeling in your stomach when snacking on a road trip, and tastes amazing. I was surprised how expensive it was (even for Iceland) but looking at the way they prepare it the price seems justified. This and thermal pools are the things I miss the most about Iceland.
- pesfandiar 7y agoWait until you try it with a bit of butter then! I think the protein-to-price ratio makes sense when you compare it to similar products like beef jerky or pepperoni sticks. I'd bet hardfiskur is a lot healthier than jerky and deli meat though, since at the least it has much less salt.
- wallace_f 7y agoWith high-quality nutrient-dense foods I get satisfied and full easily; but when shopping, I often forget to consider this when looking at prices. Thanks for reminding me.
- lukasm 7y agoI had dried cod with butter, which was pretty good. I went to a cooking class in Reykjavik and tried Arctic char with butter. It was much better.
- Shorn 7y agoIt is wonderful with a bit of butter - but someone needs to tell the Icelanders that! Watching them eat it, it's a true exercise in restraint not to ask if they want some fish to go with their butter. I know it's traditional and all, but I don't understand how they can even taste the fish.
- ajmurmann 7y agoAt the Dill restaurant they served it with a little home made mayo and what seemed like powdered, brown butter (made powdery with maltodextrin). It was incredible.
- IronWolve 7y agoI didnt know dried fish is also known as a protein bar, well heck, the choice for low carb energy bars is really lacking too. Jerky as an alternative eh, good idea!
- ggcdn 7y agoI find foods like this interesting because it goes against my instincts of what's safe to eat. Same with most things cured, fermented, etc. But one thing I was wondering - in an open drying shack like that, how to they keep the bugs away?
- xeroaura 7y agoMaybe its cold enough out for minimal bugs? The pics seem to have snow in the background. The article mentions they dip the fish in brine before hanging up as well. Google indicates other methods of drying fish include sprinkling salt on to keep bugs away.
- jandrese 7y agoProbably by doing it when it's too cold out for the bugs. They also dip it in brine to neutralize the pathogens on the surface of the fish. What I'm curious about is what they do if they put a batch out and then a warm front blows through unexpectedly. Do they take the fish down and stuff them in a freezer until the weather cools off again? I can't imagine they let the whole batch get ruined.
- kansface 7y agoI don't think there are many bugs in Iceland so long as you don't fish-shack-up near a lake, ponies, or puffins.
- jacquesm 7y agoBug season in Iceland is relatively short but very intense. Similar to the Nordics and Canada. The black fly is the worst of them imo.
- tomcam 7y agoWe use netting
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoI'm gonna guess netting in the warm months, but honestly, they are far enough north to not worry as much as one would in a warmer climate. I was shocked by the lack of screens in windows in Norway, and I'm guessing Iceland is the same. The only time it has actually bothered me was on a farm when the cows were in the nearest pasture - there were so many flies!
- radicalbyte 7y agoThe white fish (code/haddock) version of this is really nice. It's like a fishy version of Biltong only all of the flavour is natural. I didn't like the darker one (which is pictured in the article). I've not been able to find it outside of Iceland though.
- mu_killnine 7y agoI just watched a fascinating video on 18th century cooking where this same kind of fish (cod) is prepared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdzAt6e1l-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdzAt6e1l-c I thought the step where they beat the fish with a mallet was so wild. It's certainly led me down a rabbit hole of seeing how we used to prepare food a few hundred years ago.
- mrighele 7y agoStockfish has been the main ingredient of a very traditional plate in north east Italy for more than four hundred years [1]. These days it is not used as much as in the past, but you can still find stockfish in a number of supermarkets. Preparing the fish for cooking takes 2-3 days, and the first step is of course beating it with a mallet :-) [1] It was in fact considered food for poor people which is quite strange since it was imported from far places.
- kbenson 7y ago> It was in fact considered food for poor people which is quite strange since it was imported from far places. Well, so was lobster at one point...
- tejtm 7y agowonder if this was for softening up or killing macro parasites and eggs
- equalunique 7y agoI really want to try some of this. I'm a fan of Cambodian-style fermented fish, and so this Icelandic fish seems like it might be another option for me.
- GrumpyNl 7y agoI have a treat for you, Norske lutefisk. Its one of the, for me, most disgusting things i have eaten. All the side dishes made it bearable.
- bifrost 7y agoDude, you gotta try Surströmming!
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoApparently, the truth about the lutefisk is that you should never eat the lutefisk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wTCJ5bqK2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wTCJ5bqK2A
- nkurz 7y agoThe most surprising part for me about the dried fish trade was the role of Nigeria! "Enterprising Icelanders have figured out how to salvage the waste from the fish factories. They take the discarded carcasses and heads to hang them on racks to dry and send to Nigeria. There are football fields of hand tied fish heads in the lava fields outside Hafnafjord (near the blue lagoon). Portuguese gave the Nigerians a taste for dried fish heads at and Icelanders are very smart and capitalizing on the protein drain in Africa." https://olsonfarlow.com/editorial-images/polish-worker-hanging-cod-heads-in-geothermal-area-iceland https://olsonfarlow.com/editorial-images/polish-worker-hangi... "The heads are primarily sold to Nigeria, where dried fish heads are considered a delicacy." https://icelandmag.is/tags/cod-heads https://icelandmag.is/tags/cod-heads
- jacquesm 7y agoIn Iceland they also eat the heads, it's a local delicacy, I would caution against it.
- Shivetya 7y agoCan you provide a comparison if possible to other types of food; I have that typical Westerner squeamishness towards the idea of eating fish "heads"
- jacquesm 7y agoThe smell and texture were such that I felt an urgent need to temporarily become a vegetarian. But one other HN'er was present at that dinner and gave in to peer pressure, maybe he'll chime in.
- gexla 7y agoSame in the Philippines. The smell will drive non-Filipino's out of the area. The locals love it, but I never heard of such a thing before arriving here.
- paulgerhardt 7y ago
- vermontdevil 7y agoDidn’t realize the TLD for Iceland is .is
- landonxjames 7y agoI tried Hákarl[1] when I was in Iceland and I do not think I have ever felt so betrayed by a food. It really destroyed my interest in trying any other aged fish dishes, but one of my friends loved it. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
- athenot 7y agoPretty much any fermeted food is going to be an acquired taste and take a while to get used to (if ever). I happen to love French cheeses but I know some of my foodie friends won't find them enjoyable. I suspect this to be a natural distrust of the body regarding fermented things, slowly easing the taste into things that the body can recognize as safe. But I don't have any evidence to back that up.
- cr1895 7y ago>I suspect this to be a natural distrust of the body regarding fermented things I wonder if the opposite is true, from an evolutionary perspective. Fermentation is a way food remains safe to eat where otherwise it might have rotted or made one sick.
- masklinn 7y ago> Fermentation is a way food remains safe to eat where otherwise it might have rotted or made one sick. OTOH there's a pretty fine line between fermentation and rotting, so individual preference might come down to perceptive difference.
- gambiting 7y agoSo I went to the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö(would recommend going!) And they had a little tasting section at the end. Pretty much everything else was absolutely fine, even surstromming was ok, I can totally see myself enjoying it with some vodka and a gherkin. But Hakarl? Jesus I honestly wanted to vomit afterwards. All of the foods there had some redeeming quality - if the smell was bad, the taste was good, or at least the texture was. Hakarl was bad on all 3 counts - smell that could wake the dead, texture that was somewhere between a snot and egg yolk and the tests was just of something that died long ago and was left to rot.
- ww520 7y agoHákarl FTW. I got couple Icelandic friends and they said the way to make Surströmming was to dig a hole in the sand, put the fish in, piss on it, and cover it up to let it ferment, to get the legendary authentic smell out of it. Not sure how true that is.
- nixy 7y agoFunny, in Sweden where surströmming is from I have heard the exact same words used to describe the production of Hákarl. But Hákarl is easy to smell and eat compared to surströmming, which is gut-wrenching when you smell it.
- ww520 7y agoI think they wash Hákarl before packaging it while Surströmming is still fermenting in the can until opened. The right way to open Surströmming is to submerge the can in water and wash the fish before serve. Much less smell.
- jaytaylor 7y agoOne of the most popular snacks in Iceland is dried fish. I'm curious, how much of this fish consumption is sustainable?
- andridk 7y agoWell, it's not like "harðfiskur" is cheap. 100 grams go for about $8. Icelanders don't eat a lot of fish any more. Almost all of it is exported. Is the fishing sustainable? I don't know. Probably not.
- Someone 7y agoThere are about 340,000 Icelanders, and Iceland has a 200 mile exclusive fishing zone around its coast. Such a zone around a single point already is over 120,000 square miles. So, at less than 3 Icelanders per square mile of ocean, I doubt they could eat all the fish in ‘their’ ocean. Drying fish is highly sustainable, as it is done on low-tech solar power. The only concern could be the method of catching fish. I doubt that makes much impact, though, and if it does, there’s bigger fish to fry elsewhere (pun intended)
- jaytaylor 7y agoHow does the fish cure rather than rotting with this technique? And since it's outdoors, how are insects kept away from the meat?
- steve_adams_86 7y agoI imagine it's similar to dry aging beef. With the right temperature and humidity, you support only bacteria that are safe to eat and you end up with a dry protective exterior before long which allows the fish to begin safely fermenting. You can do this with a surprising number of things. The trick is to have the correct initial conditions which prevents the proliferation of counterproductive bacteria. They also dip the fish in a brine to promote the right bacteria and prevent others from taking hold. As for insects, it's likely that it's too cold outside (I think the article mentioned that it's kept outside in cool weather). Once it's done doing the cool weather thing it goes inside.
- Gustomaximus 7y agoI saw the home version of this in Norway near Lofoten where people literally nail a gutted fish to their boatsheds: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UNEA7favnWmQ4TCV9 https://photos.app.goo.gl/UNEA7favnWmQ4TCV9 If you ever have the chance to go up there, do. Its one of the more naturally beautiful places I've been: https://photos.app.goo.gl/d6EpUXrbwjMUZS2v5 https://photos.app.goo.gl/d6EpUXrbwjMUZS2v5
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoI second the suggestion to visit if you can. I moved to Norway about 6 years back and I'm still amazed at the beauty of things, especially when I get out of the city. This summer, I'm heading generally North myself :)
- galfarragem 7y agoI'm surprised that nobody spoke about Portugal. One of most important ingredients in Portuguese cuisine is dried codfish. Note that there isn't codfish in Portuguese waters, it's mostly imported from Norway. Eating codfish heads is still popular (probably less than decades ago) and it is called caras de bacalhau [0]. Once you try it can easily become one of your favourite dishes. While you can't beat the preconcept you can try bacalhau a bras, the most "easy-going" dried codfish dish [1]. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=caras+de+bacalhau&t=h_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=caras+de+bacalhau&t=h_&iar=images&... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bacalhau+a+bras&t=h_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bacalhau+a+bras&t=h_&iar=images&ia...
- fitnesshealth 7y agoMany people call the dried fish a natural protein bar, for it contains 80 percent protein and contains, moreover, healthy fatty acids. Nothing is added to dried fish, except for the brine it is dipped into before being hung up to dry. Right now, Gunnlaugur reports, catfish is the most popular kind of dried fish. It has a stronger taste than the rest. The best way to store dried fish, he advises, is in the freezer. One of the most popular snacks in Iceland is dried fish. As is true for French wine or quality cheese, where the fish comes from and how it is processed affects its taste. Morgunblaðið journalist Ásgeir Ingvarsson interviewed people at the fish company Harðfiskverkun Finnboga in Ísafjörður, the West Fjords to find out how they process the fish, for there, it is done the old-fashioned way, instead of using machines for drying the fish. Many tips to gain weight and build muscle is here: https://www.fitnesshealthforever.com/fitness/2019-stay-healthy-and-gain-1-kilo-in-7-days/ https://www.fitnesshealthforever.com/fitness/2019-stay-healt...
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoFew people know that "Baccalà" (stockfish) became popular in Italy in a very peculiar way [0]: "He is known for being shipwrecked in Røst, in northern Norway, in the winter of 1432, and subsequently returning to Venice, where he wrote a report of his travels for the senate. He is also credited with popularizing Stockfish in the Veneto region, where it is prepared as Bacalà alla Vicentina." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini