We tried one of the world's most intense foods

hákarl smells like a litterbox, tastes like Limburger

Hello, my beloved clowns!

It’s not often we get ingredients brought to us from far-flung places, but this week, a dear friend of mine, Elizabeth, brought us a very special edible treat from Iceland. This is widely regarded as one of the most extreme foods on Earth, for its pungency, preparation, and its rarity. It has been featured on a lot of travel shows by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, and Gordon Ramsay, each of whom had a challenging time eating it. (Ramsay straight up spit it out.)

“Okay, Dannis,” you say. “Spill the beans. What is it?”

This dish is known as kæstur hákarl (more commonly abbreviated to hákarl), aka, fermented shark. It’s made of Greenland shark, which in ordinary circumstances, is toxic to eat due to the high concentration of trimethylamine N-oxide in its body, which is essentially poison. This is because sharks don’t have kidneys, and basically emit pee from their entire bodies. Imagine if your body did that.

I never thought we’d be eating potential poison for the newsletter, but here we are today. (Of course, I’m exaggerating; once the meat is prepared, you can, in fact, eat it.)

Its traditional preparation is about as extreme as the food itself. Once the shark is caught, its head and guts are removed, then the body is buried in sand and pressed with heavy stones, where it stays for six to 12 weeks. It’s later excavated, the meat is cut into large pieces, and hung up to dry out for yet another few months in a barn specifically made for the hákarl.

[Here’s some important notes, however: Greenland sharks are the longest living animals on Earth with a backbone, with lifespans that scientists believe can go up to 272 years. (Some estimates suggest they can live for over 500, but this isn’t confirmed, and people aren’t really sure how old these things can get.)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recognizes them as being vulnerable to extinction, which is why these sharks are rarely, if ever, hunted in Iceland now. Hákarl is instead made of Greenland sharks caught as bycatch, and I’d like to stress to you that we wouldn’t knowingly support the active hunting for an animal that’s in danger of going extinct.]

Now you see why Davida and I were so curious about this stuff, so everyone thank Elizabeth for bringing it to us from the Bjarnarhöfn Shark Museum, which is where they teach tourists and Icelanders alike about this absurdly unique and somewhat terrifying food.

Now, hákarl isn’t an everyday food in Iceland.

In fact, it’s part of a special spread called Þorramatur, which is a traditional array of food eaten to celebrate Þorrablót, which in turn is a festival celebrating midwinter. Þorrablót can be anything from a casual get-together to an all out big event, but man, if you’re going to eat something like fermented shark, it better be for a good fucking reason.

Most of the time, people just eat hákarl in little cubes straight from a toothpick, but you can also eat it with a traditional rye bread called rúgbrauð along with a type of aquavit (a spirit flavored with either caraway or dill seed) called brennivín.

While we don’t have any Icelandic restaurants in Chicago that I’m aware of, I was able to track down some rugbrød at a super cool restaurant called Ørkenoy.

It’s the closest version to rúgbrauð I’d be able to get (I’m not sure if Icelandic rye bread is the same as the Danish version). I called in, and to my delight they were perfectly happy to sell me a loaf. The bread is delightful. It’s dense with rich caramel-like notes, and it’s a sourdough, so it has a tart and complex flavor to it.

Elizabeth was also kind enough to bring us a little Harvey-sized bottle of Brennivín as well.

You don’t want to be near Harvey when he’s wasted. That little guy is capable of anything once he gets some liquid fire in his belly.

The hákarl came vacuum sealed, which is why we couldn’t smell it through the bag Elizabeth gave us.

But as soon as I cut that package open, the distinct smell of ammonia crept across the kitchen. Ever been slapped across the face with a rag soaked in cat pee? Too bad, because that means you haven’t truly lived yet.

There isn’t much of a rottenness to it, however. Hákarl just smells like floor cleaner that starts with a seafood scent, but if there was one, it was totally bulldozed by straight chemicals. It makes me wonder what raw Greenland shark meat smells like, but frankly, I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay not knowing.

In preparing the hákarl, I made the key mistake of holding it with my bare hands.

It was less that the flesh was gross in any particular way, and more that hours later, my hands still smell like shark-pee meat. The smell is now officially part of my body and congratulations to me, I think I may actually be urinating through my skin now.

I sliced the hákarl into dainty little cubes for Davida and I to try, and without further ado, we both popped them right into our mouths, without any accompaniment.

I don’t remember doing this, but later Davida told me it was the first time she’d ever seen me physically brace myself while eating anything, as apparently I’d leaned over and gripped the side of the kitchen island as I was chewing.

At first, the scent of ammonia filled my nostrils as my jaws moved. But as the smell dissipated, I noticed the fibrous meat wasn’t as raucous-tasting as its odor. The immediate cat pee flavor gave way to a more subdued moldiness that I’d have to liken to Limburger cheese. Good thing I have a very recent memory of that smell. It had a stinky-foot like taste, but if you like smelly cheese and you don’t mind a chewy bit of sashimi, overall, hákarl could be incredibly worse.

Davida said it reminded her of blue cheese and she went back for seconds. Eventually, so did I.

We then tried it with a tiny bit of the rugbrød from Ørkenoy.

The bread did a serviceable job of masking the flavor of the fetid meat with its starchy molasses-like sweetness, but not for long. Once it it dissolved away, the hákarl punched right back through again, which was amazing.

I poured Harvey, Mr. Bee, and Pepper a little tribute shot of Brennivín, and then Davida and I tried some more hákarl washed down with a splash of it.

I can see why people use Brennivín as a rotten shark chaser, because it had the remarkable effect of temporarily erasing the hákarl’s flavor. I say “temporary” because as soon as the burning liquid was down my gullet, the cheesy sharky flavor came back in full force. At this point I’d gotten used to it, though. Could I have eaten a whole fillet of this stuff? Probably not happily. But if this was a once-a-year thing that you eat in Iceland I would embrace that tradition.

I let Sub-Zero take a whiff of it.

She was fascinated, but she wasn’t convinced it was food, so she wandered off after a while. Her idiot brother, Scorpion, galloped into the kitchen thinking there’d be something in it for him, so I let him take a sniff too.

Scorpion examined the hákarl, pulled his ears back, squinted, and recoiled.

Davida and I polished off the remaining cubes that I sliced, and I wrapped up the remainders. It’s been eight hours since we tried the hákarl, and our apartment still smells like a deep-sea riot. I may actually have to take the garbage out early because I’m afraid the can will absorb some of that smell. And the can is made out of metal.

That’s one bucket list item crossed off the list. Davida and I didn’t have the same complaints Bourdain, Zimmern, or Ramsay had when they tried hákarl, so I guess that makes us champions. I was okay with it, but Davida happily enjoyed it. She even asked if she could have the last piece.

Now that I respect the hákarl, it is time for me to disrespect it. I still have plenty leftover, so for the next leg of my journey, I’m going to do something that only a dickhole like me has the guts to do. Since it has a blue cheese funk to it, I’m going to turn it into hákarl dressing, and see how well it pairs with Buffalo wings.

And you can’t fuckin’ stop me.

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One last round of applause for Elizabeth, for bringing this forbidden stinky fruit of the sea into our home. The stench may never leave it. If you all enjoyed our adventure, don’t forget to share Food is Stupid on social media:

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Finally, the Made Inc Cookware 10” carbon steel pan winner for this week is David K., so I’ll be shipping his pan out soon. He wanted me to tell you all to vote, and says, “The forces of oppression win when they convince us that participating in democracy is futile. Please help prove them wrong.”

I have one last Made In Cookware pan to give away: As thanks to them, do me a favor and follow Made In on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, take a screenshot, and reply to this email with it. I’ll randomly pick a winner from this batch, and one of you gets the last pan with a lil’ handwritten note from me. Do it by 11:59 p.m. this coming Friday (CDT), and you’re entered.

As always, I love you all, and I’ll hop into your inboxes with some hákarl dressing later this week.