This is the single worst thing I have ever put in my mouth-Anthony Bourdain on fermented shark eaten in Iceland.
Anthony Bourdain is my favorite celebrity chef. For one thing, he doesn’t have to bother with actually cooking stuff anymore. And his tv shows are not about cooking, they are about traveling the world and eating great food, not so great food, and just plain weird food. I was watching a re-run of the Iceland show on the Travel Channel and here was our hero eating Puffin, fermented shark, and head cheese. Worst meal ever-coming from Tony that has to be a pretty bad meal. Makes you want to take an Iceland vacation, right?
A few years ago on trip to Maine, we went on a Puffin Cruise. Puffins are cute little birds that look like toucans who got seriously lost on their way home from a big party. The waters where the Puffins live looked like it could have been Icelandic. They hung out near a tiny island with a lighthouse on it. The Puffin were flying all over the place. Once in a while one would come toward the ship and try to land-only to realize at the last moment that it was a boat. They would get this look their tiny Puffin faces like, where did that come from?
Puffin are cute little birds. Eating Puffin is like eating puppies, it’s just wrong. Jared on the Iceland Report does not agree with this assessment-he likes the taste of Puffin. And Simon Collison is looking for some free range Puffin. Maybe I am just a wimp, here, do you think eating Puffin is a bad thing?
People in Iceland seem to eat a lot of Puffin. But to be fair to Iceland and to Anthony Bourdain, there was more to their Icelandic Vacation that eating odd foods. Anthony kicked back in volcanic hot springs called the Blue Lagoon, which is one of the keys to Icelandic health. Getting a mud bath at a hotel in Iceland and then soaking in the hot mineral waters is part of the Iceland health joint relief plan. Though it just seemed to mad Anthony Bourdain mad. But then, just about everything seems to make Anthony Bourdain mad.
Another key to Iceland health is eating a lot of fish, as Puffin eat a lot of fish, eating Puffin is like eating a fish. I think I heard them say that Iceland is the only place you can legally eat Puffin. But there seem to be some loopholes about exporting it for those that want to eat the little cuties outside of Iceland. Eating fermented shark and Puffin can’t be good for Icelandic health, can it? They do seem to have long lifespans, but then, they have to live in Iceland.
After watching Anthony Bourdain’s Iceland vacation, I still want to go to Iceland some day, just not some day in winter. I don’t think I’ll be eating Puffin though- unless they serve it on my Icelandic flight-well, no, not even then.
