[Sca-cooks] Icelandic Food Question

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Adamantius wrote:

>Bearing in mind that the Romans used to call the Britons and the
>Germans giants when they were over six feet tall, and also bearing in
>mind that Julia Child was originally around 6' 6" tall before age and
>a habit of hunching when standing alongside her shorter husband more
>or less permanently reduced her height, why are these stories
>incredible?

The giantesses of the Icelandic stories took a different approach, no
hunching here - in these stories, they have fallen in love with and
kidnapped young men who come to the mountain valleys to gather Iceland moss,
they have taken them to their mountain cave, and are stretching them and
using potions to make them grow large enough so they can marry them -
anyway, the men are not quite happy with the idea and to escape, they
pretend being sick and tell their giantess that the only thing that will
cure them is a piece of 12 year old (or 15 year old, or whatever) hákarl
that can only be obtained at this or that remote location, usually right
across Iceland. The giantess runs off to chase the hákarl, the man runs away
to the nearest church and barely escapes; just as he approaches the church
the giantess comes running, yelling that she has got the hákarl. She usually
kills him in the end, though ...

>Some authors have compared it to ripe Camembert...

I wouldn't, but then maybe I've never had really ripe Camembert. But the
Icelandic word "kæsa", meaning letting food ripen or "go rotten"
intentionally, is closely related to "cheese".

Nanna