Saltkjöt og Baunir

Saltkjöt og baunir (literally 'salted meat and beans') is the traditional dish of Sprengidagur (literally 'Bursting Day'), the Icelandic name for Shrove Tuesday — the day before Lent begins. The tradition: eat this hearty stew of salt-cured lamb and yellow split peas until you 'burst' (sprengja), one last filling meal before 40 days of fasting. The dish has been eaten on this day in Iceland since the late 19th century. The saltkjöt (salt-cured lamb) is a preservation tradition born of Iceland's pre-refrigeration past; the split peas came later but are now essential. It is a specifically Icelandic Shrove Tuesday food, with no direct equivalent in other Nordic countries.

A bowl of thick, pale-yellow stew with chunks of salty lamb falling apart, the split peas cooked to a soft, almost porridge-like consistency. The broth is savory and deeply lamb-flavored from the salt-cured meat. Eat it on Sprengidagur, until you are 'bursting' — the way Icelanders have for over a century.

The saltkjöt (salt-cured lamb) must be soaked overnight to remove excess salt (it is cured very salty), then simmered long (90+ minutes) to tenderize the cured meat. The yellow split peas are added near the end and cooked until they break down and thicken the stew — they are the body of the dish. Some versions add rutabaga or potato, but the canonical form is just lamb, peas, and the cooking liquid. The dish is meant to be thick and hearty — the food of excess before restraint.