February 21-Whether it is Mardi Gras, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, or Fasching, essentially every culture with a Christian heritage celebrates overindulgence in their own manner today. In Iceland, sprengidagur, or "bursting day," is celebrated by eating until you are nearly ready to burst. So, the similarity between sprengidagur and the other celebrations seems fairly obvious at first glance. However, the devil is in the details and the detail that differentiates
sprengidagur from the other pre-Lent celebrations is the food. Traditionally, the food to be eaten in excess today is a soup made of salted lamb and beans, usually supplemented with potatoes and turnips as well. Quite obviously, sprengidagur is not a Nordic Mardi Gras!
Sally and I had some of the soup at the coffeehouse at Bifröst. When the cook saw us eating the soup, she asked if we liked it and we told her that we did. She was quite surprised and asked if we had Icelandic ancestry. No, but it was just meat and potatoes in a soup. From my perspective, that is not exactly rare or odd. I mean, how can you go wrong with that? The kids all had this traditional dish for dinner as well and Sally even made some for supper, so the whole family properly celebrated sprengidagur. Of course, it didn't hurt that we still had some cream puffs and a whole lot of Valentine's candy left over from yesterday!
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