As you travel in North Iceland, you are never far from the source of your food and the stories behind it. This is a region of vast volcanic landscapes and icy seascapes, where small communities live at one with harsh nature and short summer seasons. For several months a year, nothing grows – humans, animals, and plants have to be tough to live here. But the stern circumstances bring a fresh and pure flavor to the products of nature – the volcanic soils, the clear waters, the long days in summer – everything is packed into a short but intensive life.
Here, the volcanic land meets the icy ocean along about 1100 km of coastline, making sure that only freshly landed fish is put on your plate. Sheep and horses roam free in nature, ensuring that only the best meat is sourced for your dishes. While being a vegetable is a hard life if grown outside, green food grows sustainably in geothermally heated greenhouses – a natural asset of Iceland’s extraordinary geology, cultivating perhaps the most northern tomatoes in the world. Extensive mountain valleys offer rich pasture for cows, yielding dairy products such as the famous Icelandic Skyr.
Foraging is still a tradition to enrich the diet: berries and mushrooms, arctic moss, herbs and wild angelica. Auk are sought along the seacliffs for their eggs, and meat from wild geese is abundant in autumn.
