Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.09.2019, Side 6

Although Icelanders consider
shark meat their country’s
traditional cuisine, in reality,
the truly traditional Icelandic
food is the old-fashioned,
fat and greasy hamburger.
For decades, you could not
travel around the country
and buy anything else than a
sloppy, slightly overcooked
burger. And you had to have
coleslaw and kokteilsósa
(Icelandic cocktail sauce) on
the side if you didn’t want to
be perceived as a traitor.
Icelanders embraced
American culture early on,
adopting trash food like it
was our own. Food experts
say that the first hamburger
was probably sold in Iceland
in 1941, although some
believe that the first was
sold in the famous road shop
Staðarskáli in Hrútafjörður in
1960.
Either way, Icelanders defi-
nitely caught burger fever by
the 1960s. That much is true.
Food experts think that
American soldiers taught
a woman called Jakobína
Ásmundardóttir to make this
delicious folky traditional
food when they were based
here during the Second
World War. If that’s the case,
we salute thee, miss Jako-
bína, foremother of the won-
derful Icelandic hamburger.
VG
Hamburgers
There are numerous sites of natu-
ral beauty and wonder all around
Iceland, and while there is no one
right way to visit them, there are a
few wrong ones. This one especially.
Nora McMahon posted the above
photo to the Facebook group Iceland
Q&A on Monday, showing an unknown
person wearing only a pair of shorts
wading perilously close to the very
edge of the Skógafoss waterfall,
which is just over 60 metres high.
“Don’t be this idiot”
“Whatever you do, when you visit
Iceland—don’t be this idiot,” she
wrote in part with the post, as Vísir
reports. “I thought I was going to
witness this narcissist fall to his
death just to get Instagram likes.”
The photos made their way to
Bakland Ferðaþjónustunnar, a Facebook
group for tourism industry workers in
Iceland. There, numerous tour guides
and other workers expressed shock
and dismay at the depicted behaviour,
with some suggesting that people who
pull such stunts ought to be arrested,
fined, deported, or all of the above.
Police say they are not investi-
gating the matter, but they advised
no one attempt to repeat this.
Örlygur Örlygsson, who runs the
tour company Travice, was on the
scene when this incident happened.
He witnessed the fall-botherer arrive
with several other tourists, whom
Örlygur speculates were all Americans.
Örlygur told reporters he was stunned
speechless by this reckless behaviour.
“He said it didn’t matter because
life itself is dangerous,” Örlygur
recounted. “I didn’t know what to say,
I was just really surprised by this.”
For the record, we at The Grape-
vine recommend observing any of
Iceland’s many beautiful waterfalls
from a safe distance. The last thing
rescue workers want to do is risk
their own lives to fish your body out
of the rocks beneath a waterfall.
How Not To Approach
A Waterfall
Do not tempt fate
Words:
Andie Fontaine

Photo:
Nora McMahon
First
The puffin is a beloved bird that
everybody associates with Iceland.
However, recent studies have shown
that their numbers have been dwin-
dling. The Grapevine reached out to
seabird ecologist Erpur Snær Hansen
to ask why.
A lack of food is basically the
cause, which started in 2003. The
sand eel population fell in 2005. Ice-
land’s south and west coasts were
hit particularly hard, so few chicks
fledged. It’s been poor since, but the
numbers started improving in the
west over the last four years or so,
and in the last two years have been
good. This accounts for about 65% of
Iceland’s puffin population.
The puffin population in the north
has been doing OK the sand eel stock
remains sufficient in that region after
the departure of capelin in 2003. The
east has been doing poorly.
This year, the Westman Islands
have seen the most puffins since
2007, but the pufflings have been fed
low energy food for the last weeks
and their departure is now about
three weeks overdue, in contrast to
their “normal” growth period of 42
days.
The adults' survival seems to have
been fine, they are not short of food.
But there is not enough around the
colonies to feed all of these chicks.
So that has been the problem.
ASK A
Seabird
Ecologist
Q: Why Are Puffin
Numbers Going
Down?
6 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 16— 2019
FOOD OF ICELAND
NEWS
And here we see the American tourist in his natural habitat
Words: Erpur Snær Hanson
Photo: Submitted by Erpur
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