A Taste of Iceland - Rotten Stingray

Looks innocent, doesn't it?

Here is proof that I am not the only crazy person out there. The first section of this article is the translation of a post my lovely friend Judith wrote a few years ago. I laughed so hard that I asked for permission to share it with you guys here. 

Skata - the christmas skate

Everyone knows the shark.

The infamous "Hákarl", i.e. fermented shark, that is prominently featured in every travel guide on Iceland to be the king of tastebud killers of the traditional Icelandic cuisine. Admittedly, the shark is an acquired taste, much like beer. You won't like the first one, but you'll get used to it over time. I do wonder, however, why no travel guide ever mentions the stingray. Because in comparison with the stingray, the shark qualifies as mild gourmet cuisine. Maybe none of the authors of travel guides have visited Iceland around Christmas? Stingray ("skata" in Icelandic) is an indispensable component of Advent in Iceland and most importantly on the evening of December 23rd. For many Icelanders, if they don't get skata that day, it won't be Christmas the next. 

Tonight, we had skata. The fish was still frozen when we took it out of its plastic wrapper but even then, the typical smell of ammonia bit our noses. Much like the shark, the stingray has to ferment for a few months. Neither shark  nor stingray are able to pee, they dispose of their urine through their skin. During the fermentation process, this urine transforms into ammonia and stays in the fish. Or this how they explained it to me. 

The stingray is cooked in water. Spices would be entirely obsolete, you wouldn't be able to taste them anyway. On the side, you'll get potatoes (surprise) and fat. You get to choose between molten butter (modern, non-traditional) or the more traditional molten, slightly rancid smelling lamb fat that is also used in western Iceland.

So tonight, the sour ammonia smell typical of Christmas slowly filled the house. I had the presence of mind to close the door to my room. Once the skata is cooked, you take it out of the water and everyone helps themselves to a piece. You peel off the dark skin and remove the meat from the cartilaginous fish skeleton. Tougher guys (like Gisli's father) eat the cartilage too because "it has such a nice crunch to it". You then proceed to mash the potatoes and pour the fat over the dish (a lot, because it softens the taste to a certain extent) and - enjoy. 

Once the steaming fish is on your plate and and the steam hits your face the right way, your eyes will start watering. I'm not lying here, even Gisli's dad had to blink a bit. 

The fish, once in your mouth, will kill all remaining taste buds. My tongue gingerly explored the insides of my mouth to make sure the mucous membranes were not detaching from the walls of my mouth. The skata's taste is extremely pungent and fights its way to even the most remote corners of your paranasal sinuses. On the plus side, your respiratory tract is completely unblocked after this experience. Even I as a lover of strong and pungent cheeses such as Appenzeller and Schabziger had some difficulty finishing my meal. 

Of course the smell had found its way into my room after all, so I lit a sea of  perfumed candles. Unfortunately, I had left some laundry on the rack. Oh well, so the bed linen will smell of "Christmas" when Gisli comes home.

[...]

P.S. Some apartment buildings do not allow the preparation of skata on the premises. Not everyone on  the block wants their living room to smell of rotten stingray, after all.

If you read German and would like to take a closer look at Judith's awesome blog, click here.

After reading her account, I felt that I needed to try this, come what may. I wasn't expecting to like it, of course. So on December 23rd, Frankenspouse and I set out to educate our taste buds. We went to the local shop, which also has a little self-service restaurant attached. Approaching it, we caught some whiffs of the smell and cocky as we were, thougt it wasn't that bad. That's until we were inside the building. Oh boy. There was a surprising crowd, 30+ people, feasting on skata. I even ran into the mail man, whose face was glowing with joyful anticipation. Frankenspouse and I helped ourselves to fish, potatoes, and bread. I also went for copious amounts of molten fat, Frankenspouse didn't like the idea, but while I didn't remember the details from Judith's description, I wanted to have it the way the locals ate it. We found two seats in the crowded restaurants, obviously being the only foreigners. Not only were fear and anticipation clearly visible in our faces, but in such a small community, people know who's new and who belongs. A nice lady next to me put her hand on my arm and asked "First time?" with a concerned look. When I confirmed, she nodded, smiled and recommended "Don't inhale". That was clearly insider knowledge and excellent advice I'll be forever grateful for! While smell and taste quickly unblocked all my sinuses (seriously folks, try this next time you have a cold, you'll scare it right out of your system), I quickly found that if you eat lots of potato and fat with a little bit of the rotten fish, you could get this over with and keep a straight face. Being the only foreigners there, people were watching our reactions with varying degrees of Schadenfreude. See, not many people, including the natives, actually like eating that stuff. It's a tradition and cherished as such, but apart from Mr. Postman who freely admitted to loving it, the more rotten, the better, I can't remember anyone saying that they liked the taste. Traditionally and before you could import everything from the rest of the world, resources were scarce in Iceland and having the skate ferment in its own urine was a way to made an inedible fish edible, albeit not quite palatable. 

Surrounded by a curious and amused crowd, I think we did well and refrained from pulling faces. While we did not go for a second round, we agreed that it wasn't as bad as we had anticipated. Bad, but not as bad. That is until the smell kicked in later. After we left the restaurant and for the next three days, the smell was with us. No shower, no changing clothes, no vigorous brushing of teeth helped. We would smell it on each other and on ourselves, not all the time but in unexpected whiffs. So the taste lasts 10 minutes, what's ten minutes in comparison to eternity? It's the smell that gets you, the smell that attaches itself to your olfactory memory and will haunt your dreams forever after.

It was a great experience. Would I eat it again? Yes. I'm far from eager to repeat the experience, but it wasn't as bad as some other stuff I tried. Look out for the A Taste of Iceland post on þorramatur.