Reykjavík Grapevine - jan. 2023, Blaðsíða 28

28 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1— 2023
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HOW IT’S MADE
Harðfiskur
Iceland's traditional fish jerky
Words: Catharine Fulton Images: Art Bicnick
They say necessity is the mother
of invention. In Iceland, the need
for foods to last through potentially
lengthy periods of shortage and
strife is clear in the ways
they’ve been traditionally
prepared. Some foods are
salted, some are fermented
and others still are putre-
fied. But another culinary
practice that has stood the
test of time without (to our
knowledge, at least) boost-
ing blood pressures or
inducing nausea is drying.
If there were a poster
child of dried foods in
Iceland it would be the
humble harðfiskur. Tradi-
tionally, the dried fish
would spend months air-
drying on wooden seaside
racks before being pounded
with a mallet into supple
strips of fish jerky. But modern
times call for modern methods.
We spoke with Von Iceland
owner and managing director Þór
Hauksson about the longevity of
harðfiskur and how it’s made today.
“Harðfiskur is dried fish,” Þór
explains matter-of-factly. “It is one
of the oldest materials (Icelanders)
have sold abroad and something we
have been eating since people first
came to Iceland.”
The dried fish remains a beloved
staple of the Icelandic diet and can
be found in just about every grocery
or convenience store you’ll come
across around the island — usually
with packs of butter nearby for a
quick combo buy. At Von, Þór and
his team are producing the tradi-
tional food in much the same way
Icelanders of yore did, with an
upgraded assist from the elements.
“(Our ancestors) dried the fish
outside, so our factory process is
imitating how it was done in the
past, where you’re using the wind,
which we have a lot of in Iceland,
and the cold, as we also have a lot of
that,” Þór explains. “Originally, they
were hanging the cod outside for
five or six months, but today we’ve
cut that down to four or five days. So
in four or five days we’re imitating
the process that has been done for
centuries in Iceland.”
Luckily for food purists — and
the healthiness of harðfiskur is one
of its major selling points
today — cutting back on
drying time doesn’t require
that anything is added to the
fillets.
“The main thing is that the fillet
or fish is prepared as if you’re going
to put it in the oven to cook it your-
self. But instead of putting it in
the oven, we put it on trays and it
goes into the driers,” Þór says, only
having to clarify when I note that I
would hit my fillet with some salt
and pepper before tossing it in the
oven. “We don’t add any ingredients
with the fish. It’s more of a sushi
method.”
“More and more young people
are reading packag-
ing and are
more mindful of what’s in the food
they’re eating,” Þór explains, diving
into the ways Von is modernising
more than just the way harðfiskur
is made. The Hafnarfjörður-based
family-run company has also
updated its packaging to appeal to
younger Icelanders and has made
all its packaging recyclable — a far
cry from the twist-tied clear plastic
bag the pungent strips of fish were
exclusively sold in just a decade ago.
Oh, and about the smell, appar-
ently the thinner the fish is cut the
less it smells. Þór and his team found
that out when creating their latest
take on harðfiskur. Crunchy Fish are
uniform potato chip-like morsels of
harðfiskur that look like a chip but
they’re actually 100% fish. They’re
dried in a way that makes them puff
up into crunchy little bites. “It’s just
like any other dried fish we make,
but it’s thinner and they all look the
same,” Þór tells me. “We don’t know
why, but it doesn’t have the same
smell as the other harðfiskur.”
It’s a mystery for the ages.
To Skin or Not To Skin?
Getting back to how modern day
harðfiskur is made — you know,
because the article is called “How
It’s Made” — one key step Von
takes when preparing their fillets
is removing the skin before drying.
Since the skin on harðfiskur
isn’t edible, you’d think that’s a
no-brainer, but then you’d be wrong.
“A lot of older people in Iceland
like to have to peel the skin off,” Þór
says. “It’s kind of a custom for some
people, but there aren’t many people
who still like to have it with the skin
on.”
It turns out that making harð-
fiskur less messy, less smelly and
less work makes it far more appeal-
ing for consumers who want to eat it
in public.
Harðfiskur is available in every
grocery store in Iceland. Or you can
order your own Crunchy Fish from
the Grapevine Store for a protein-
rich taste of Iceland.
“In four or five
days we’re
imitating the
process that
has been done
for centuries
in Iceland.”
“We don’t
know why,
but it doesn’t
have the
same smell
as the other
harðfiskur.”