On our first day in Reykjavik, we wondered if we’d stumbled into some modern version of Gulliver’s Brobdingnag. Everyone was … so tall. And fit. And wearing technical gear. They looked like they were about to dash up Iceland’s volcanos, dive for lobsters in its fjords, or — at the very least — set sail in a high-prowed boat to discover a new continent or pillage an old one. It was a very Viking moment.
The secret behind all this outsized vigor (or so we were told) was skyr. This Nordic cousin of Greek yogurt is so well-drained and thick that it’s legally classified as a cheese. What distinguishes it from various other cultured milk products is that heated skimmed milk is inoculated with traditional Icelandic skyr cultures. The result is a high-protein, low-fat dairy product that has the acidity and texture of sour cream.
Breakfast of champions
Icelanders apparently eat skyr morning, noon, and night. We found it just right to start the day. In additon to the health benefits, skyr helped keep our travel budget in check. Our first meal — about US $50 for two burgers, a Coke Zero, and a latte — convinced us that we’d made a wise decision to rent an Airbnb rather than stay at a hotel. At least we could make breakfast. While food is expensive in Iceland (most of it is shipped from Britain or mainland Europe), it’s more economical to shop at the grocery store than to eat every meal on a restaurant. That allowed us to dine out on local specialties while economizing on breakfast.
Our nearest grocer mainly stocked Ísey brand skyr (www.iseyskyr.com). The company claims to use ‶the original Icelandic recipe.″ In fact, most sources claim that skyr was introduced by Vikings when they settled the island roughly 1,000 years ago.
The sweeter side of skyr
We enjoyed it every morning for breakfast, augmented by hot drinks and toasted rustic bread. Reykjavik, fortunately, has a lot of excellent bakeries and the climate and volcanic soils make the island a natural for growing oats, barley, and even wheat. But tangy skyr gave us an almost Icelandic vigor for tramping from one end of the city to the other. We found that a little vanilla flavoring was more simpatico with our tastebuds than the somewhat more popular blueberry version, which has an intense purple color.
Skyr is also used in baked goods. Maybe the best treatment that we encountered was ‶Icelandic skyr cake.″ We had popped into Café Babalú (Skólavörðustígur 22; +354 555 8845; www.babalu.is) for a quick lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. Then we saw the skyr cake in the dairy case (as shown at the top of this post) and couldn’t resist. It proved to be a tangy, somewhat fluffy cheese cake with just the right touch of sweet fruit.
If you want to tap into that healthy Viking lifestyle, Whole Foods markets stock Icelandic Provisions, the US sister brand of Ísey Skyr. It claims to be the only stateside brand made with certified Icelandic heirloom skyr cultures.