Icelanders will consume an estimated 200 tons of þorramatur this year including new dish, pickled ram’s penis.
It has been more than six months since meat producers began preparing this year’s þorramatur by boiling, salting, smoking and pickling various meats, RÚV reports.
Roughly 170 tons of þorramatur will be stocked in supermarkets in the near future and Icelanders expected to buy it all up in a matter of weeks. Pickled þorramatur is the most popular and believed a preferable and healthy choice following all the smoked meats consumed during Christmas and New Year.
Eðvald Sveinn Valgarðsson, head of quality control at Kjarnafæði, says that the acid in the pickled þorramatur draws out the salt naturally present in the meat which is rich in B-vitamin and calcium.
A great deal of care is taken when creating the annual þorramatur and only extremely old recipes are used. However, this year a new pickled þorramatur is being introduced; pickled ram’s penis.
Ingvar Már Gíslason, marketing director at Norðlenska said that it has been fun to play with the old fashion process of pickling but to try it with a new product.
“I’m not sure it will necessarily be a big seller,” said Gíslason, “but I encourage people to try it. It’s always fun to play a bit with your taste buds.”
The pagan holiday of Þorri, celebrated in February, still survives in Iceland today in the form of þorramatur. Þorramatur is eaten at a Þorrablót in which people gather to eat foods including Svið (lamb’s face), liver sausage, blood sausage, ram’s testicles, putrefied shark and now, pickled ram’s penis.
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