Food in Iceland on the National Geographic Explorer

The Icelandic hot dog isn’t very different from the ones I’m used to,
but it was fun to eat it at 11 PM while the sun was setting.

Fish was our choice at most lunches and dinners during our Iceland trip last week. The ship picks up fresh fish on several of the stops in small fishing ports, and the chef, who comes from Sweden, prepared it beautifully. Iceland once depended on fishing for most of its income, and still has many fisheries and salmon farms.

A selection of Icelandic fish: three kinds of herring and smoked salmon.

 

Icelandic lamb is also a delicious choice. Sheep are very well adapted to life on the cold mountain sides of the country, and we enjoyed seeing them everywhere. Along with the famous Icelandic horses, sheep were among the first animals brought to Iceland by the Vikings over 1000 years ago.

The ship’s cooks also created many beautiful desserts, which I almost always ate. Fortunately, the portions served were not excessive!

A “LAVA” cake! Perfect with all the volcanos.

The bread on the ship was nice, but not unusual. At a stop to see the geyser fields, we saw eggs cooked in the boiling water from the hot springs, and also tried bread that was baked by hot lava.

With a Swedish Chef, of course we had meatballs!

Finally, the bus tour that ended the trip stopped for lunch at a hotel around an hour from the airport. Food there was fine — and we had a beverage:

We ate this final lunch with friends we had made on the trip.

Photos and text © 2021 mae sander.