Way to go Iceland with your crazy food

So it's Þorrablót in Iceland (Thorra-blot, except quick off the tongue), the festival of MidWinter and Thor the Thunder god.  Probably the darkest festival in the world as there is barely any sunlight, Þorrablót is also the time of year that has the most suicides in Iceland (go figure).


So why not make this cold and dark time less suicidal by serving the grossest food imaginable? Þorramatur (Thorrra-mat-ur) = Thor's food.  Makes sense to me!  I'm sure if given a platter as an offering Thor purposely leaned right over into his box of thunderbolts.  Here's a menu.


Hákarl (putrefied shark)  (Hau-karl)-- essentially shark meat that's been pissed on.  Seriously.  And it tastes like one of the worst things that you can think of. Anyway, Hákarl is shark meat that is divided into pieces, and then buried in a large pit and covered with gravel (where it used to be pissed on before it was buried).  After 6-16 weeks, it is dug up, washed, and hung out to dry for 2-4 months.  When the drying is done, the crust is removed and the white meat cut into small pieces.  It tastes like either bad cheese or straight up urine.  It is usually served in cubes.  Gordan Ramsay threw up after eating it on the F word and most people vote it as the worst food in the world.  Icelandic people think it's fun to disgust people and will probably try to make you try it.  Take the darker piece (the lighter, the nastier).

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2. Blóðmör or Slátur (slau-ter) (filled sausage/black pudding) -- to make this you need a huge pot of sheep's blood boiling on the stove and a sheep's stomach cut into pieces.  You must sew the pieces of stomach into little stomach bags that you can stuff.  Now you take mutton and fat, oatmeal, Icelandic moss and some other stuff, and mix with the blood.  Stuff the stomach bags with the mixture and boil.  Yum yum.
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4. Hrútspungur (ram's scrotum with testicles) (hroots-punger) -- aren't these Prairie Oysters?  I've had them before and they tasted like McNuggets.  But these are different.  They're pickled.  It's more like pâté than McNuggets.  McTesticles.  
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6. Svið (jellied sheep's head) --  (Svith)-- this one's a good one.  A sheep's head is burned to remove the wool, cut in half, brain removed, boiled and eaten like that or in a jelly.  Yum!
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8. Harðfiskur  -- ok, this is more like fish jerky and it's good.  It's smoked fish that's hung and dried into a jerky.  You eat it with lots of butter.  It's not that bad.  They make it sound gross.  
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10. Some others include selshreyfar (sour seal flippers), hvalrengi (sour whale fat) and the most ridiculous sounding, Kaest skata (rotted stingray).  If you're bored serve a platter to your friends.  I'm sure they'll be pleased.