Loes um ræstkjøt

I remember the first day here in Foroyar, me and my host family ate lunch and there was that big dark smelly piece of meat on the table. I had heard that Faroese meals can sometimes be a little bit smelly, but this was… extremely bad-smelling. And then I hadn’t discovered ræstkjøt yet… So my first experience with the dried sheep meat was slice of bread with a miniscule little piece of skerpikjøt. I was so proud.

Some days later it was time for seyðarhøvd… My host family did a good job at offering me almost all the crazy food in the first weeks! I tried my best not feel bad for the sheep because his whole cooked head was laying there before me and I would eat it in some moments. It didn’t tasted that bad actually. Just the idea of eating a head still gives me the shivers.
But now… Ræstkjøt… I think the very first time I ate it was at Christmas. My host family told me that the whole house will smell so I mentally I was good prepared. But this… This just beat everything… I even can’t describe my feelings. Luckily my sweet host family also made dunna and those delicious brown sugar potatoes. They surrounded me with all the good-smelling food at the dinner table and placed the ræstkjøt at the other end of the table. But still, with that overwhelming smelly-feet-with-strong-cheese scent I didn’t really enjoyed the sugar potatoes as I should enjoy it.

I hoped this would be the first and the last time I had to smell this. But no. I visited my contact family: ræstkjøt. I celebrated new year in Suðuroy: ræstkjøt. A random day in school: RÆSTKJØTSUPPA! (that was in Kambsdal, now i’m in Hoydalar, i don’t know if they also serve it here) Everybody was like : “ooh ræstkjøtsuppa! I’ll go buy lunch today!” And I just tried to survive the day by breathing as little as possible.

Got to love those smelly Faroe Islands.