Hardfiskur

I've never been one to be shy about trying new food, and I take the "when in Rome" approach to heart, so I was really looking forward to trying all the delicacies Iceland had to offer long before I arrived.

Fortunately, all of the "strange" foods are merely traditional, meaning they're only eaten at holidays or fancy parties instead of on a day-to-day basis... So things like sheep's head jam is not a common item at the dinner table.

Sheep's head jam... I'll let that sink in... Mm, mm, good!

The first food I tried is more for tourists... it's called Hardfiskur and is basically fish jerky. I love it, personally.

Fish is a major export of Iceland, of course. In fact, in one of my first lectures our guest speaker repeatedly shouted at us "to know anything about Iceland, YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT FISH!" He even went so far as to say that besides Bjork, Keiko is the most famous Icelander around the world. You know it's true...

So again, more for the tourists than the actual Icelanders, and therefore more expensive, but very yummy; I highly recommend giving it a try!