Halló !
So, our blink-or-you’ll-miss-it eruption lasted less than 24 hours, but as I mentioned last time it managed to destroy the hot water pipeline that supplies the entire Reykjanes peninsula with heating and hot tap water.
When I wrote the last installment, it looked as though they might be able to get it going again within 48 hours, but alas, the damage was more extensive than originally thought, so that plan failed.
Then it looked like it might take a week to rectify the situation, since an entire new pipeline had to be laid, with 50-some-odd sections needing to be welded together. And this is not just ordinary welding—apparently it requires heavy expertise. In the meantime 30,000 people and the Keflavík International Airport (the country’s most important transit hub) would be without heating and hot water. Folks were also instructed to conserve electricity to keep the system from crashing due to overload, like if they wanted to use electric heaters instead. Oh, and did I mention that it was really, really cold?
Long story short, they got the pipeline constructed in four days. Four days! A hundred welders worked shifts around the clock, 50 at a time, in sub-zero temperatures. (I’m astonished that Iceland has so many welders!) You gotta love the Icelanders in a crisis. That’s when we truly shine. Centuries of living on in a land that continually offers up natural disasters and other catastrophes will help code that into your DNA.
In other news
A while back I was approached to be a guest on The Storied Recipe podcast, and last week I had a delightful conversation with the host, Becky Hadeed, which I can’t wait to share with you when she has finished editing it and taking photographs of the Icelandic recipe I chose to be featured. 🥰
As it happens, Becky was here in Iceland a couple of weeks ago and interviewed the chef at Þrír Frakkar, a renowned Reykjavík restaurant, for a podcast episode that is now available for streaming. They discuss a lot of interesting topics relating to Iceland and Icelandic food, throughout our history, as well as today.
A trigger warning: they do talk about eating food that some people may find troubling, such as horse, puffin and whale.
While I enjoyed the episode a lot and recommend a listen, I cannot do so without mentioning that Stefán, the chef at Þrír Frakkar, is unabashedly pro-whaling, and gives a very one-sided account of the industry here in Iceland.
He maintains, for instance, that the whale hunt is humane, and that whales are killed instantly when they are hunted. What he completely fails to mention is that, last year, a ban was set on whaling just a day before hunting was to commence, when a video was leaked showing that whales were, in fact, not killed instantaneously, but were in the death throes sometimes for hours, with the ships chasing them. In other words, they suffered a lot.
After whaling commenced again, images appeared of workers carving a whale carcass and finding a baby whale in the mother’s uterus.
Evidence also came to light that the whale hunting company—there is only one—did not follow laws and regulations relating to animal welfare, and in fact violated them in an egregious manner.
This should not come as a surprise considering the corruption surrounding the whaling industry here in Iceland, and the fact that the owner of the single whaling company effectively has the Independence Party—which you may remember from an earlier lesson always get their way—in his pocket, and can therefore do as he pleases, more or less with impunity.
This individual, Kristján Loftsson, is one of the wealthiest men in Iceland, by virtue of fishing quotas that have been given to him by his friends in the IP. This allows him to catch copious volumes of fish off Iceland’s shores—fish that, being a natural resource should by rights belong to the entire nation. These “quota kings” (as the Icelanders call them) are Iceland’s version of Big Business, exploiting this common resource to make themselves, their families and their cronies very, very rich. In exchange for these quotas they do all they can to keep the IP in power, which in practice means pouring vast amounts of money into their election coffers.
And in the case of Kristján Loftsson, who also owns a “regular” fishing company in addition to the whaling one, the IP has tailor-made a law that allows him to hunt whales.
Anyway, this is a longer and more complex story than is suitable for this space, but let it be known that the majority of Icelanders are opposed to whaling. As for the ban that was put on last year by the Minister of Food and Agriculture (who is from the Left-Greens, who are in a coalition with the IP), it was, sadly, lifted at the end of last year when the minister was found to have violated the law by applying the ban after the quota had been issued. Yep, it was a question of legal fencing, i.e. whether the whaling law or animal welfare law would come out on top. Turns out Kristján Loftsson’s law was the one that prevailed—at least for now.
And of course this billionaire is now suing the state for damages and a vote of no-confidence was set to be brought against the Food and Agriculture minister, except that on the day they were set to vote on that, it was announced that she had gone on sick leave as she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Anyway, MAJOR TANGENT when all I wanted to do was to share the episode and tell you to watch this space for the next Storied Recipe episode, which features Yours Truly. ✌️
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That was so interesting. In America, we have a similar problem but multiplied by dozens. Big Agra (4 companies control the food supply), Big Pharma, the medical/healthcare/insurance industries, even candy is controlled by only two companies: Hershey and Mars. Our Supreme Court has ruled that these enormous companies are people and can contribute to the political process. Most politicians are also bought and sold. It’s distressing, to be honest. The brutality of the whale hunters are as bad as the factory farming of all meat-to-market animals. It is dreadful, so I will spare you the gruesome details. I cannot bear the slaughter or mistreatment of animals (I do not eat meat but I do eat some types of fish). Anyway, I found your newsletter fascinating! Thank you 😊
copies —?—> copious
I really do wish Iceland would permanently ban whaling. And soon.