Dark Days of Winter Week 4: Icelandic Fish and Chips

{icelandic fish and chips with locally-caught haddock and icelandic-grown potatoes}

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! My Week 4 post is a week late--Week 4 of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge began in Iceland and ended with Christmas, all of which made it very easy to indulge and forget about consuming a locally-sourced meal for the week. Husband and I took a little pre-Christmas vacation to Iceland, which was cold and beautiful and so much fun. Living on a completely remote island has made Icelandic people fairly self-sufficient, so although a lot of food is imported, Iceland does have greenhouses where some fruits and vegetables are grown, like tomatoes and cucumbers. The food was quite delicious (and despite what people had told me, it didn't all taste like fish!)

As I've been going through my pictures, I realized that a lot of the meals we ate were primarily made with local ingredients. The most purely "locally sourced" meal I ate was simple: fish and chips (potatoes). The main ingredients were definitely local, but condiments were a little harder to come by according to "local" rules. The haddock was, of course, caught in Icelandic waters, and I asked the waitress about the potatoes. They too were grown in Iceland. The haddock was battered in spelt and barley, and of course, you have to eat fish and chips with malt vinegar, all of which was imported. And I'm pretty sure the sea salt flakes were from an English brand.  So this was what I considered my most "local" meal for Week 4. This meal was so good, we went back another day for more.

And speaking of "dark days"--we had maybe five hours of daylight (NOT necessarily sunlight). More Iceland pictures to come. I'm still recovering from Christmas feasting. 

{A short post and some pics of our trip here}