[Marxism] The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, or....

["S. Artesian" <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

....
...One man's bankruptcy is another man's terrine of smoked puffin breast 



WSJ online  February7

... there has been nothing frothy about Iceland since the currency, the once 
high-flying krona, crashed to roughly half its value last fall. Banks were 
nationalized. Unemployment zoomed. And while I was in Reykjavik, the government 
fell, after weeks of noisy demonstrations in front of the world's oldest 
parliament, the Althing. In my hotel around the corner from this small squarish 
building of black volcanic stone, I had to put on noise-limiting earphones to 
block out the clash of cymbals, the blare of foghorns and other insistent 
cacophony from the square below at night. [THE HORROR! THE HORROR! THANK GOD 
THE HOTEL PROVIDES THE EARPHONES AT NO EXTRA CHARGE]

The money crisis explains why Panorama and Reykjavik's other bubble-spawned 
luxury restaurants are so sparsely patronized now. Icelanders aren't throwing 
cash around, and tourists don't flock here to luxuriate in the five hours of 
faint winter light each day. But for anyone interested in sampling some 
intelligently cosmopolitan treatments of exotic ingredients, the time is now. [ 
YES! SEIZE THE TIME. IF YOU WAIT, YOU'RE LATE.  IF YOU'RE SLOW YOU BLOW] 
Restaurants like Panorama or the very chic Vox in the Hotel Nordica or the 
marvelous bistro 3 Frakkar are, in effect, on sale for those of us lucky [AND 
BEING LUCKY IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN BEING GOOD] enough to arrive with dollars. 
Iceland just a few months ago was arguably the most expensive city in the 
Western world, with airport cabs costing $140. Now prices have come down, if 
not to earth, at least to a level competitive with other capitals of developed 
countries. Just about every boutique on the elegant shopping street Laugavegur 
had a sale sign in the window. (Utsala, the word for sale and a rare 
Icelandic-English cognate, was the first Icelandic word I learned.) And Paris 
and Barcelona don't offer diners cutting-edge preparations of moose, puffin, 
reindeer and whale. [NO THEY DON'T.  SOMEONE THEY DO SEEM TO DO OK WITH CANARD 
CONFIT, CREME CATALAN, THOSE FISH SOUPS FROM YOUR EVERYDAY FISH.  BUT SOMETIMES 
YOU JUST NEED A CHANGE, YOU NEED TO TUCK INTO SOME PUFFIN AND WHALE TO FEEL 
GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF AGAIN].

At the top of the food chain, you can now tie into some paper-thin petals of 
roseate, pounded moose carpaccio at Sjafarkallarin (Seafood Cellar) or a 
plateful of langoustine tails lightly tossed in butter. I never thought I would 
be served too many langoustines, but what seemed like a dozen of the dainty 
things turned a treat into a trial. The waitress relentlessly pushed overpriced 
wine on me (all wine in Iceland is overpriced, because of import duties), and I 
reluctantly concluded that Sjafarkallarin was a kind of pretentious 
trap.[UNLIKE THE WSJ WEEKEND SECTION DINING REVIEWS...]

Vox might strike some people as even more pretentious, but for me it was a 
beautiful adaptation of modern culinary principles by executive chef Gunnar 
Karl Gíslason to local foods. [SEE WHAT I MEAN?]

I started with an elaborate and well-thought-out sauté of puffin cubes with 
sunchokes and hazelnuts in a cream sauce tinctured with truffle and leek oil. 
Puffins thrive in such abundance in Iceland that, it is said, you can easily 
find yourself alone with a million of them on an isolated beach. So guilt would 
have been irrational as I enjoyed the chef's artful crossruff of textures -- 
the chewy puffin playing against the more brittle sunchoke and hazelnuts, with 
an overall sea-saltiness prevailing amid the Gallic refinement of the sauce. 
The puffin hunter's name, Siggi Hennings, was on the menu.... [BUT HOW CAN YOU 
BE SURE THAT SIGGI KILLED THEM HIMSELF, AND BY HAND.  MAYBE HE HAS A SLEW OF 
FORMER BANKERS, CURRENCY TRADERS, WORKING FOR HIM]

.

...Icelandic law permits hunters to take only 300 reindeer a year (there are no 
farmed reindeer in Iceland). So those dark-red cylinders of faintly gamy meat 
(really more in the line of grass-fed filet mignon) taken at Jökuldals og 
Fellaheidum says the menu (and who would doubt it?) are the Kobe beef of the 
North. Vox serves them standing on end, apparently the local style for the same 
cut of beef.

Vox is the obvious candidate for Iceland's first Michelin star,[AND PERHAPS A 
HARD-ON-THE-HEELS BANKRUPTCY] according to a proud Vox waiter who recognized me 
on a flight to London. Iceland is a small place. Before you know it, you start 
noticing faces you've seen before.[THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME FACES, WITH 
A GENETIC HOMOGENY THAT IS ALMOST FRIGHTENING-- AS IF YOU HAD BEEN DROPPED INTO 
THE FILMING OF CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED]. 

Thrir Frakkar is where you want to go for Icelandic traditional food with a 
modest nontraditional spin. Chef Úlfar Eysteinsson's puffin is cured and 
pungent, comes in purple strands, arrayed in a nouvelle starburst. If I could 
go back tomorrow, I think I would order the horse steak again. Here was meat 
with personality, plated modestly with potatoes, carrots and turnips. Lean and 
unforgettable. [UNLIKE THE WRITER WHO IS UNLEAN AND MOST FORGETTABLE]

As was the cunningly Icelandicized dessert, a crème brûlée based on skyr, the 
mildly sour, ubiquitous soft cheese that will remind first-timers of a thick 
yogurt. In the crème brûlée, its sourness countered the sweetness of the sugary 
sheet on top. And that's not all. On the same plate was a big mound of whipped 
cream and a smear of light custard sauce rippling with red fruit jam -- a dairy 
symphony. And for a touch of the sunbaked south, Chef Eysteinsson drops an 
orange Colombian physalis berry (Cape gooseberry) complete with papery ecru 
leaves, on top of the whipped cream. [BE  STILL MY HEART.  ACTUALLY, IT WILL BE 
AFTER EATING THAT DAIRY SYMPHONY/DIRGE].

Does this sound too cute for you? Then head down to the harbor in a gale and 
wander among the docks until you stumble on Saegreifinn (The Sea Count), a 
shack specializing in putrefied Greenland shark and hardfiskur, fish chips that 
will permanently perfume your luggage. [PUTRIFIED GREENLAND SHARK? HOW 
WONDERFUL,  HOW APPROPRIATE FOR THIS CAPITALISM].

They reminded W.H. Auden of toenails. But if you don't get around to buying 
some from Saegreifinn, and forget to pick up a sheep's head, complete with eye 
and tongue, at the central-bus-station canteen, the Icelandic deli at the 
hypermodern airport sells them both along with puffin pâté. [ON MY WAY!]
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