Iceland’s food ambassador
Attention adventurous foodies: If you’ve ever fancied a plate of pickled ram’s testicles, or found yourself craving strips of rot-cured shark, you need to connect with Arden Jackson. And you can: for the past six winters, the proud Icelandic-Canadian has been organizing the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto’s Vikingthemed feast, Thorrablot. Jackson, one of the most active members in the Icelandic diaspora in Toronto, explained that all proceeds raised by the April 13 “Edible Sagas” event go toward supporting Icelandic scholarships. Funds also support the Snorri Program, which sends North American youth of Icelandic descent to Iceland to rediscover their roots. Q: So what’s Thorrablot all about? A: Thorrablot is the mid-winter feast. It’s held during the old Icelandic month of Thorri, which is in late January and early February. It features all the old food. In Iceland, you really depended on the preserved food you had from the previous fall and summer. In Toronto, we celebrate in April because we don’t like to worry about storms. It’s our biggest event of the year and our biggest fundraiser. Q: What’s on the menu? A: The food is the main feature. We wanted to be adventurous and bring back the old Thorri food. We have something called hard fish, which is a wind-dried fish — dried like paper, and you dip it in butter and eat it like chips. Gravlax, which is a cured salmon. A smoked lamb called hangikjot, which is hung meat. Then there’s stranger things. Blood sausage, liver sausage. You have hakarl, which is fermented shark buried underground for some time. We have done hrutspungar, which are boiled and pickled ram’s testicles, and for decoration, a delicacy in Iceland — singed sheep’s faces. The eyeballs are delicious.
Q: Do you have something for less adventurous eaters?
A: There’s the herring salad, the mashed turnips, but the desserts are to die for. Of course vinarterta, a cake with 14 layers of fruit and shortbread (pictured). Something we can never get enough of is ponnukokur, an Icelandic pancake filled with homemade jam and whipped cream and folded over, or rolled up and sprinkled with sugar like a crêpe.
Q: When did you get involved with the Toronto club?
A: Since my children were young, so probably about 20 years. I was looking for a way to provide them with a connection with their Icelandic-Canadian family in Toronto because I came from northern Manitoba. Now I’m considered the Thorrablot convenor.
Q: Why do you suppose there’s such a sudden interest in Iceland?
A: We’re kind of amazed by it. Iceland has been in the news a lot, with the collapse of the banks in 2008. I think the Icelanders realized they had to capitalize on their assets, which was tourism. They did a terrific job to promote it as a place with waterfalls and glaciers and volcanoes. In Toronto, Thorrablot has been run for 30 years or so by the club. We now do dinner for 250 people. Five years ago, it was a potluck. We can’t do that anymore.