My Latest Cultural Adventure

My great grandfather Erick Erickson was born in Iceland and came to America in 1880. His son, my grandpa Glen, has done an amazing amount of research on our Icelandic history. He has the most impressive website I've ever seen on ancestry. Check it out if you'd like: http://www.glenreva.com/

beautiful Iceland!

I will soon be cooking at least one dish from my heritage for a special event. I could pick something Irish or French, but I'm looking into my Icelandic heritage this time. Let me tell you, it's been an adventure so far! Not surprising are the traditional dishes which involve scary things like rotten shark and blood pudding. And the tame foods like good old plain mashed potatoes, baked cod and various homemade breads. And then you have the surprises such as Icelandic hot dogs and Icelandic nachos. Yes, nachos!

The Icelanders love fish though, so that really needs to be on the menu. So far I have a fish dish and a vegetable dish and a dessert.



Now, the hard part will be cooking it successfully. Stayed tuned for pictures and an update on how this goes.

I have never before called a market to request that they obtain and stock their store with a new product. But today I did! There is a delicious Icelandic product called Skyr, which is like a really thick yogurt. I saw this on a Travel Channel show and the host who sampled the skyr said it was so much much more delicious than the regular yogurt we have here in the States. They offer skyr at quite a few Whole Foods markets in the U.S. now. Not here in Arizona...yet! :-) Hopefully soon!




To be continued...