First Icelandic Potatoes Arrive in Stores

The first potatoes from this year’s harvest have arrived in grocery stores across the country. Nóatún received the first shipment from Eyrarbakki, southwest Iceland, this week, and according to the store’s quality controller, the potatoes look good.

“The potatoes look exquisite. They are very even and tempting,” Halldór Björnsson, quality controller of Kaupás (the company which operates Nóatún), told Morgunbladid.

Markús Ársaelsson, potato farmer in Thykkvibaer, south Iceland, said it is difficult to estimate how the harvest will turn out this summer. “The season has only just begun and you never know what happens. But the situation is all right, same as last year.”

To celebrate the beginning of the potato season, Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Einar K. Gudfinnsson invited a few of his friends to a potato feast at Thrír Frakkar yesterday, a popular seafood restaurant in Reykjavík.

According to 24 Stundir, master chef Úlfar Eysteinsson served the new potatoes, which came from the farm of Birkir Ármannsson, Vestur-Holt in Thykkvibaer, with plaice and sauce hollandaise.

Two types of potatoes that are grown in Iceland are especially popular among consumers, íslenskar raudar (“Red Icelandic”) and gullauga (“Golden Eye”).