Dining with Icelanders in Reykjavik, Iceland

Whether it’s geyseros, glaciers or guillemots, Iceland is a country bursting with natural wonders and one that you seriously must try to check out at the very least as soon as. With any luck , my posts from our new excursion have demonstrated just how significantly there is to see and do – the landscapes and waterfalls, the geothermal miracles and the prosperity of special ordeals. But perhaps you discovered one particular issue lacking? Even though we have met loads of folks on the way, a lot of what we did was incredibly much geared toward vacationers and, aside from the occasional information, most of our interactions have been also with other travelers.

Would not it be awesome if you could practical experience the serious Iceland for a working day, or even just a couple of several hours? A far more genuine expertise wherever you get to meet area Icelandic men and women and find out a tiny about their tradition and working day-to-day life, most likely about a traditional Icelandic meal. This is in which Dining with Icelanders comes in.

Eating with Icelanders is the brainchild of Helga Kristin Fridjonsdottir, herself an Icelander, and proprietor of journey advisory Iceland Unwrapped. Iceland Unwrapped is all about connecting folks with Helga’s homeland in a far more immersive way, bringing the interactions in between people far more to the fore than may possibly be achievable with a common tour practical experience, for case in point.

Eating with Icelanders is a absolutely different way to get to know Iceland and Icelanders. Helga is an skilled traveller herself – getting lived in Brazil, Austria, Denmark, Portugal and the Netherlands, as properly as Iceland of system – and connects readers to Iceland with nearby individuals, around a dining face, for a actually special knowledge.  In our circumstance, we have been blessed sufficient that Helga invited our family to be part of her possess family members for evening meal at her dwelling on one of our final evenings in Iceland, even though this would not generally be the case due to the fact Helga has a amount of different hosts with which she connects her travel clientele at a range of various venues.

We had been very warmly welcomed into Helga’s dwelling. She is fluent in Icelandic, English, Danish and Portuguese, and returned from the Netherlands (from in which she experienced previously began her corporation some a long time previously) in 2020 to dwell in Reykjavik with her partner, Mike, a communications consultant from Chicago, and teenage son, Gabriel.

We have been incredibly a great deal designed to feel at home and encouraged to assistance ourselves to some appetisers that involved scrumptious smoked lamb and smoked salmon on buttered rúgbrauð. This rye bread would historically be designed in the ground, with the dough normally place into a container such as a milk carton and still left in the geothermally heated earth for 24 several hours, and then it’s all set.

I was also interested to consider the harðfiskur – dried fish (in this circumstance, haddock) with salted butter as I experienced study about this becoming a well-known Icelandic snack. It is Iceland’s solution to fish jerky and has been preferred in the place for centuries… and is of class also packed with protein, nutritional vitamins and Omega 3 so fairly a nutritious snack, too. The moment you’ve tasted it, you are going to see why it is a staple in Iceland!

It was wonderful to get to know Helga and her loved ones, and we had an pleasant chat about a complete assortment of subjects, from learning about how Icelanders live and the Icelandic instruction process, to the country’s modern energy jobs and residing with earthquakes. We even chatted about elves and street diversions, the Katla collection on Netflix, and Gabby and Mike’s appreciate of Tottenham Hotspur.

For our primary, we experienced cod that was just cooked in butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper. This is a great illustration of how not trying to above-complicate a dish pays enormous dividends as the cod was so tasty that it didn’t will need anything at all extra.

It was served with potatoes and greens, as the conversation moved on to Icelandic delicacies, our Arctic rafting practical experience, the pandemic, politics, revolutionary firms in Iceland and a lot more. I was seriously fascinated to hear how the the latest growth in journey to Iceland was observing the tourism marketplace overtake the fishing market, and but Iceland could endure from fishing by itself considering that this was tested in the course of the COVID pandemic.

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For dessert, we experienced pönnukökur served with jam – splendidly fragile Icelandic pancakes that are considerably like crêpes. They were served with rhubarb jam and whipped cream and we had been proven how they had been usually loaded, folded in half and then folded all over again into quarters.

I later found out that these golden pancakes, which resemble the sunshine, are generally produced to welcome the very first sunshine in late January in a celebration called “Sólarkaffi” when the sunlight rises high adequate earlier mentioned the mountains to shine its rays around the locals.

Just before we understood it, 3 several hours experienced flown by. We’d had a truly satisfying night and experienced been made to really feel extremely welcome we’d enjoyed an practical experience that pretty number of holidaymakers traveling to Iceland would ever get to experience. If this seems like some thing you’d delight in, be certain to get hold of Helga. She is extremely approachable (in truth, I spoke to her on line prior to our personal pay a visit to to Iceland and picked up all sorts of valuable recommendations), and will be only way too happy to assistance you. Her Dining with Icelanders working experience can be booked as aspect of a holistic deal that encompasses hidden gems, off-the-beaten-monitor experiences, tunes and culture, as perfectly as dining.

Planning a journey to Iceland you? You can observe a online video from our excursion to Iceland in this article:

Disclosure: This submit is sponsored by Iceland Unwrapped. Our journey to Iceland was also sponsored by Helly Hansen.