CULTURE
Food
Barley salad with blueberries The project Mataraudur Islands (Iceland’s Culinary Treasures) celebrates Icelandic food culture. TEXT: Mataraudur Islands PHOTO: Ursula Jaeger
Did you know... Mataraudur Islands hosted a competition earlier this year to find Iceland’s most beloved national dish – with a modern twist – encouraging the creative use of Icelandic ingredients. One of the entries was barley salad with blueberries by Ursula Jaeger.
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
250 g pot barley, grown in Iceland 6 dl water 1 tsp. salt 150 g spinach 125 g wild Icelandic blueberries 125 g Gradaostur blue cheese 2 tbsp. Icelandic rapeseed oil Salt and pepper
Pour the barley into a casserole filled with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Boil for 30 minutes, then leave to cool off. Rinse the spinach and blueberries, then chop the spinach and blue cheese into even pieces. Stir salt and pepper into the vegetable oil. Mix everything together and let soak for a little while before serving.
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In the 17th and 18th centuries very few Icelandic homes had access to salt. Salted meat and salted fish, staple products of Icelandic cuisine, didn’t become everyday food until the 19th century.
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Icelanders made up for lack of salt by lacto-fermenting meat in whey, in which it could be stored all through the winter – a special Icelandic preservation method. The whey made the meat sour in taste but also rich in vitamins and minerals.
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With a gradually cooling climate, grain farming was abandoned. It is believed that barley – which now grows in Iceland again – had disappeared almost entirely by the 17th century. Imported grain was scarce.
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Instead of bread, Icelanders ate buttered dried fish. Skyr (fresh cheese, similar to yoghurt) was also an everyday food. The little grain available was supplemented with wild herbs like Iceland moss.
