Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.06.2014, Blaðsíða 14

14
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2014
Gourmet Experience
- Steaks and Style at Argentina Steakhouse
Barónsstíg 11 - 101 Reykjavík
Tel: 551 9555
argentina.is
“Many of the herbs we use are consid-
ered weeds, though they are actually
nothing but good for you. We want to
emphasise those herbs and plants, and
change the way people think about
them. There is so much food in nature
and in our immediate surroundings,”
says Bjarki, who now runs the project
along with Anne Rombach out of the
East Iceland town of Stöðvarfjörður.
“For instance, we make juice from
the herb sweet cicely [Myrrhis odorata],
a plant that has mostly been considered
inedible, but is actually quite healthy
and has medicinal value. We also make
a pesto called ‘fardagamauk,’ from the
herb njóli [dock in the Rumex genus],
a plant that is widespread in Iceland
and matures during ‘fardagar,’ the time
each year when workers traditionally
moved from one farm to another.”
Food And Art Intersect
This summer, the group plans to build
a completely sustainable house in
Stöðvarfjörður with the help of their
friend and architect Baldur Snorrason.
“The sustainable house is an idea de-
rived from permaculture's concept of
sustainable architecture,” he explains.
“We will have to take the environment
into account and research how various
materials will work—like the fact that it
rains sideways here in Iceland, which is
definitely not good for structures made
from clay. This is the sort of thing we
have to figure out.”
Volunteers will be joining them
from as far as South Korea. “We recruit
volunteers through an organisation
called Worldwide Friends,” he says.
“This summer, we'll get about eight vol-
unteers every two weeks, so we'll have
a lot of people working with us. I like
to think about the project as a sort of
seminar, although we don't really act as
teachers or the volunteers as students—
it's more a collaboration. Góðgresi just
provides the framework for it to take
place.”
Bjarki also sees it as an art project,
which is perhaps not surprising giv-en
that he has a background in the fine
arts. “I believe that art should be an
integral part of life, rather than some-
thing that is isolated and just sits on a
gallery wall,” Bjarki explains. “I can't
really separate art and life, which is
why I consider a project like Góðgresi
to be art.”
The decision to settle in Stöðvar-
fjörður also makes sense in this con-
text. Despite a population of only a cou-
ple hundred people, the town’s cultural
life is booming. This is partly thanks to
the local cultural centre, which was es-
tablished in an abandoned fish factory.
“The found-
ers of the cultural
centre, Rósa Valt-
ingojer and Zdenek
Patak, have cre-
ated a setting for
people to come and
create art, and the
centre is well on
its way to becom-
ing completely sus-
tainable,” he says.
“They've even cre-
ated their own tur-
bine that produc-
es electricity. Also, the locals in
Stöðvarfjörður are totally open to new
experiences, which makes working
there a lot of fun.”
Eating And Thinking
Smart
Ultimately, Bjarki says Góðgresi aims
to get people thinking about what they
eat and how food is produced. “There
are more options available than food
produced in large factories,” he says.
“We want people to be more involved in
making their own food in creative ways.
All of our recipes are
available online for
those interested in
making the products
for themselves. Also,
the packaging won’t
be labelled, so people
can reuse the jars
and bottles for their
own products.”
Although the gro-
up plans to enter the
mainstream market
in the future, hope-
fully selling their
products at a store like Frú Lauga, Bjar-
ki stresses that they won't lose their
DIY aesthetic and philosophy.
“We will still make our products
the same way as before and we'll still
operate our pop-up bazaar like last
summer so that people will be able
to try our products and decide for
themselves what they want to con-
tribute to the project,” he says. “Our
goal is to get more people interested
in participating in local food culture,
and to find ways for us to become
even more sustainable.”
Góðgresi is a collective founded by Viktor Pétur Hannesson and Bjarki Sólmundsson
with the purpose of producing food from Icelandic herbs normally considered ined-
ible by mainstream industry. Hence its name, ‘góðgresi,’ which is the literal antonym
of ‘illgresi,’ meaning weed or “bad grass.”
“Our ultimate goal is
to keep working with
people, suggesting
ways for individuals to
participate further in
local food culture.”
Food | Art
The Art Of
Food And Life
Icelandic art collective góðgresi
Talks about eating creatively
Words and photo by Kolbrún Þóra Löve
Góðgresi, meaning “good plants,”
was founded by “a chef and a trav-
eler" who met at the Iceland Acad-
emy of the Arts.
The collective is dedicated to
highlighting the beneficial quali-
ties of locally-growing herbs and
plants which are typically thought
of as weeds, or ‘illgresi.'
INFO