I’m not the only member of an Icelandic chapter in Canada whose Icelandic parent married out of the bloodline. Born and bred in Canada (Winnipeg-born, Gimi-bred), my mother was the first of her family to leave the genetic nest. It couldn’t have been easy, but I’ll deal with that another time. Here in Toronto where I live now, I met other women like me in Icelandic classes whose mother didn’t let their daughter learn Icelandic so they could continue to gossip with their siblings without a little nearby sponge soaking up the language.

And so it was with Þorrablót, the Icelandic mid-winter festival named after Þorri, the month in the Icelandic calendar that falls somewhere between January and February. And blót means sacrifice. I never heard of it until I was an adult. I called it an Icelandic pig-out. The only sacrifice involved was trying not to eat too much.

It started with us, the members of the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto, more like a pot luck. I made my amma’s Icelandic brown bread for it and others made rullapylsa or gravadlax. Always, always, there was vinarterta, the festive cake so popular with Western Icelanders, the Canadian name Iceland has bestowed on our ancestors and we who have left the fold.

Of course, as our numbers grew, we had to have the affair catered with English food for a crowd, like turkey and ham, but gradually we could afford to bring in hangikjöt, smoked lamb, literally hung meat, recalling the days when the meat was hung from the rafters above the fire in the kitchen. All this I learned, and more, as a grown-up discovering a treasure I had been denied as a child. The ”Icelandic table” remained popular mainly because of the vinarterta and pönnukökur.

Now, Icelandic pancakes I remember, because when I was a kid on summer vacation in Gimli, my amma’s neighbour used to give them to me, rolled around brown sugar. On festive occasions. like þorrablót, they are served with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

That’s a memory worth preserving!