Regional Specialty · Fermented Shark

Hákarl

Photo: Xfigpower / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Fresh Greenland shark is actually poisonous — its meat is loaded with toxins that only break down after weeks of fermenting and months of drying.

Greenland shark meat is buried or pressed to ferment for six to twelve weeks, then hung to dry in open-air sheds for several more months until it develops a strong ammonia smell and firm, chewy texture. Family producers in the Westfjords and on the nearby Snæfellsnes peninsula still make it using methods barely changed since the Viking age.

Why it's made this way: Production of hákarl is strongly associated with the Westfjords and Snæfellsnes, where multi-generation family producers, most famously Bjarnarhöfn on Snæfellsnes, keep the fermenting-and-drying process alive as a regional specialty.