Surf and Turf

I’m always attracted to the ‘surf+turf’ option on any restaurant menu. It’s partly the idea of a 241 bargain but there’s also something audacious about trying to pull off a dish of rhyming opposites – a bit like the ice and fire of a baked Alaska. So when we decided to try a highly recommended, award-winning Reykjavik restaurant, I quickly opted to give it a go.

Like many restaurant menus this one offered few real clues as to the ingredients in its boldly named signature dish. In any case the explanation in italics was exclusively in Icelandic, a tongue that I have grappled with and entirely failed to master. The waiter was a model of politely correct helpfulness. Yes she would ask the chef what the day’s catch was and what he had decided to twin it with on this occasion. We mulled pleasantly over a choice of wines to accompany this forthcoming feat of culinary fusion.

The answer came back promptly from the spotless ice cavern of the kitchen. Braised minke whale and Icelandic horse carpaccio.

Ah, we’re in Sarah Palin country here with two endangered species on the same plate and however free range and humanely dispatched they may have been, it’s perhaps a little much for one meal - let’s see what else there is.

We all make our own rules, choices and taboos for what we do and don’t eat and that makes a lot of sense in a world of multiple, sometimes conflicted cultures. Iceland offers a superb table of hard won fresh seafood, family farmed dairy products, hand-reared lamb and all the herbal essences of an Alpine meadow. Viking sagas of survival through ice-bound winters on whale oil and seal blubber are part of the island’s cultural DNA. Menus are never culturally neutral.

The issue of commercial whaling continues to divide Icelandic opinion roughly 70/30 between the majority who see it as a national birthright and a sensible use of a properly managed natural resource in a harsh environment and the minority who have moral concerns, fear for further international opprobrium (after cash and ash issues) or who rely on tourist whale-watching dollars.

The other half of our chef’s proposed duet, the carpaccio, is equally problematic. The sturdy Icelandic horse is a national symbol of rugged independence and pure bred ancestry. A tourist visit is incomplete without a ride in its friendly, faithful saddle. It is also an intensely practical tool in a country where the first ring road around the island was completed in 1973, where the interior desert winterscapes are only accessible through skilful 4x4 driving and where there is no need or desire for a rail network. The horse is also farmed in places for its meat.

Hence my reservations. Luckily the chef was both adventurous and diplomatic. In the twinkling of a carving knife he came up with an alternative surf and turf offering – reindeer burger with a skewer of Atlantic prawns – delicious.