Geothermal Rye Bread

Rugbraud, Icelandic rye bread, is dense, dark and slightly sweet, and in the geothermal areas around Lake Myvatn it is baked in the most Icelandic way of all: the dough is sealed in a pot and buried in the hot geothermal ground for a day, where the earth's heat slowly steams it into a moist, cake-like loaf, sometimes called hot-spring bread.

History

Rye is not an Icelandic crop: it came from Denmark, and it became the main cereal of Icelandic cooking in the early modern period, after the Danish king set up a trade monopoly in 1602 that lasted until 1786. The bread was traditionally baked in a pot, or steamed in wooden casks buried in the ground near a hot spring - the version known as hverabrauð, hot-spring bread. Nothing was wasted: dry rúgbrauð was ground and mixed with buttermilk into a porridge, and stale loaves were simmered with raisins into brauðsúpa, a bread soup served hot with whipped cream. Its old nickname, þrumari, roughly "thunderbread", is a joke about what too much of it does to the stomach (Wikipedia, Rúgbrauð).

What's there

• The dark sweet rye - the dense, moist, slightly sweet loaf.
• Geothermal baking - the dough buried and baked in the hot earth by Myvatn.
• With butter and fish - the classic serving with butter and smoked trout or herring.
• The Myvatn tradition - the local hot-spring bread of the geothermal north.

When to go

Year-round; the geothermal-baked version is a speciality of the Myvatn area, while good rye bread is found across the country. Try it warm with butter.

What to expect

The geothermal-baked bread is a regional speciality of the Myvatn area, so elsewhere you get ordinary oven-baked rye. It is dense and sweet, closer to cake than a light loaf. It is best with butter and smoked fish rather than alone.

Nearby

The Lake Myvatn geothermal area is its home; it is served with smoked trout across the north.