A good Icelander loves good Salmon. They also love good herring and good pike, too. Unfortunately, those are the good fish. There are some fish, in Freda’s humble opinion, that are in no way good. Chief among them is boiled skate.
Not to confuse you, but boiled skate is not a cooked leather shoe with a steel blade running along the bottom and dirty shoelaces running along the top. Boiled skate is one of those rare treats only reserved for Scandinavians, especially Icelanders.
To the untrained eye, a skate looks like a winged rat. To the trained eye, it is a ray common in the Arctic Ocean. Since it was very common, many Icelanders ate it, including the Samuelsson family.
But this is all getting ahead of ourselves. Before Freda ate skate, she went skating. This is the skating you know, which includes leather shoes, steel blades, and an ice pond.
“Wait up, Stefan,” said Freda.
“I’m right here,” he answered.
Stefan loved playing hockey. Freda loved hockey, too, but she was a girl, even if she was a tomboy. Secretly, she loved watching her brother playing hockey. Instead, she usually skated figure eights and did spins with her girl friends at the opposite end of the pond from the boys.
Freda pulled tightly on the laces. One broke, but she fixed it with a knot, then tied her laces again. She had done this several times with the laces on both skates. Her mother had always said, ‘saving money makes money.’ Freda just wished she could have a new pair of laces.
She skated across the ice, joining her brother and his friends.
“Why are you down here?” asked Stefan.
“Girls are boring,” said Freda.
“We won’t let you play hockey. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll just watch,” she replied.
“As long as you don’t ask to play.”
A large group of boys with hockey sticks, helmets, and pads gathered in between two hockey goals. There was no referee, so the face-off was decided with a coin flip. Stefan’s team won the toss. One of the boys on Stefan’s team started from Center Ice, as if it were a futbol match.
Skaters slid across the ice. Skates scratched along the surface. The sound of skates on ice and sticks passing the puck back and forth was nearly as loud as the boys calling out to each other.
“Pass it, pass it!” said one.
“Get him!” said another.
“I’m open.”
“There’s a sniper on your right.”
“I got him!”
Stefan was a defenseman. It meant he helped to protect the goal, along with the goalie. He was also one of the least likely people to score a goal. That did not mean he didn’t help.
The puck moved quickly from one boy’s stick to anothers. The sticks clapped as they received the puck. Stefan finally got the puck.
He immediately pulled his stick back behind his head. He wound up and let loose with a slap shot. The stick kissed the puck with a mighty smack. The puck flew through the air towards the goal. The goalie twisted his hand and caught the puck in his glove. With a flick, he sent the puck to the ground and hit it with his stick towards one of his teammates.
The opposing team drove down the ice. Stefan skated his hardest, backchecking towards his own team’s goal.
“Robbie’s got it,” said one of Stefan’s teammates.
Stefan turned around, skating backwards as he retreated towards the goal. There was one pass, then another, and then another. Soon, Robbie had the puck in front of the goal. Stefan was right in front of the goal, too.
Robbie juggled the puck from side to side, catching it on his stick. He faked left, then moved right. Stefan followed the fake. Robbie made a quick wrist shot, flipping the puck towards the goal. Anton, the goalie for Stefan’s team laid down, looking like a Icelandic hockey butterfly, trying to stop the shot. It bounced in and out of Anton’s glove. Then, it bounced right into the net.
“One goal for Robbie’s team,” Freda said to herself.
Stefan’s team started with the puck at Center Ice again. Stegan’s team scored next. Then, Robbie’s team scored. Then, there were more goals after that.
After awhile, the boys decided it was time to quit. Stefan skated towards his little sister.
“You’re finished already?”
“We’ve been out there over two hours.”
“You have?”
Her brother nodded.
“I wanted to skate.”
“You had your chance.”
Freda skated next to her brother, carrying his hockey stick. She tapped it on the ice, pretending she was moving a hockey puck back and forth.
“I still have to change out of these cold, sweaty clothes. You can skate while I change,” said Stefan.
So, Freda skated, with her brother’s hockey stick in her hands. At times, she treated it like a hockey stick. At other times, she treated it as her skating partner, holding it upright, so the blade of the stick was the head. She spun pirouettes, holding Mr. Koho (That was the name on the hockey stick) at her side.
Soon, a shrill whistle interrupted her dance. Stefan waved at Freda, motioning her to return to the car. She skated across the pond in a zig-zag motion, slowly making her way to the car. After she did, she tossed Mr. Koho in the back seat and unlaced her skates.
“Did you have fun?” asked Stefan.
Freda nodded. Her cheeks were flushed. She was short of breath.
“That’s good,” he said.
They returned home, where dinner waited. It was the other kind of skate.
It was another test for Freda when her mother fixed traditional Icelandic food.
Most of it was very different from the fast foods and chain restaurants she thoroughly enjoyed.
Instead, there were things like salted fish, fried fish tails, fermented shark, sheep liver, blood pudding, and boiled skate.
“Ugh,” groaned Freda.
“Sometimes, I wonder,” said her father.
“What do you wonder?”
“How you can be an Icelander, yet have no taste for Icelandic food?”
“Be kind to your daughter, Obadiah,” scolded mother.
“I just think she shouldn’t be so judgmental until she tries it.”
“Okay,” replied Freda, “I’ll try it.”
Freda reached for the platter of boiled skate with her fork. Her father pushed it away.
“I thought you wanted me to try it.”
“Not until we say prayers.”
So father led the family in a prayer. After he finished, Freda picked up her fork and tried again. The skate squirmed as she poked it with a fork. Freda recoiled in fright.
“It’s moving!” she exclaimed.
Stefan laughed.
“It’s perfectly dead,” said her father. He jabbed his fork into the body of the skate and moved it onto her plate, where it flopped. It still looked like a winged rat to Freda.
“What do you expect, dad? She’s a little girl.”
Those very words from Stefan put a fire of determination into Freda. She cut a wedge out of one of the skate’s wings and tossed it into her mouth. As she chewed, it tasted like fish-flavored bubble gum. It wasn’t very pleasant, but it wasn’t hardly as awful as she had imagined.
“There you go,” boasted Mrs. Samuelsson, proud of her daughter.
After she finished eating both wings, she stopped.
“You’re finished?” questioned her father.
Freda glanced over to him, but didn’t say a word.
“She doesn’t have to eat the rest,” aid mother.
“It’ll go to waste,” he replied.
“Then you can eat it.”
Mr. Samuelsson reached across the table and started working on the remainder of the winged fish. Meanwhile, Mrs. Samuelsson went to the kitchen. She returned with a pan of bread pudding.
“I love bread pudding,” said Mr. Samuelsson.
“Ah, ah, ah,” scolded Mrs. Samuelsson, “not until you finish your skate.”
Mr. Samuelsson sighed. Mrs. Samuelsson plated three pieces of bread pudding and ate it with her children.
Freda loved her mother’s bread pudding. She loved it most of all now, when it cancelled out the bitter taste of boiled skate.
Mother had prepared it by cutting sweet bread into large cubes and placing them in the bottom of the bowl. She mixed eggs, brown sugar, honey, and milk in another bowl, then poured it over the sweet bread. The spongy sweet bread soaked up all of the milk sauce, making it moist. Afterwards, Mrs. Samuelsson baked the bread pudding in the oven until a golden brown crust formed on top.
“This is so tasty,” said Freda.
“Thanks, dear,”
“Mmm,” was all Stefan said as he stuffed his face.
Freda’s favorite part of bread pudding was the crispy crust. Unfortunately, it was everyone else’s favorite, too. Stefan and Freda fought over the edge pieces. Meanwhile, Mr. Samuelsson could only watch as each piece disappeared. Finally, Stefan reached for the last piece.
“Leave that for your father.”
“He’s not finished with his skate,” said Stefan.
“That’s very impolite of you. He’s almost finished.”
“May we be excused then?”
Mother nodded.
The children cleaned the table and washed their dishes. Mr. Samuelsson and his plate were the only thing left besides the bowl with one piece of bread pudding.
“I’m finished,” he said as he showed the plate to his wife. The only thing left were skin and bones. He scraped it into the trash and put the plate into the sink.
“Are you going to bring back a fresh plate?” asked Mrs. Samuelsson.
“I don’t need it,” he replied.
“You’re not going to eat directly from the bowl.”
“Yes I am,” he said.
Mrs. Samuelsson scoffed at Mr. Samuelsson then went into the living room. As she watched television with her children, Mr. Samuelsson finished the bread pudding. He even slurped from the glass bowl after he finished the last of the bread. The sweet milk was almost as good as a cup of hraeringur.
He washed the remainder of the dishes and put them away.
“Was it good?” asked Mrs. Samuelsson.
“The best.”
The Samuelssons sat in the living room, watching television, while the spirits of winter stirred outside. Luckily, they had the comfort of both fireplace and family to keep them safe and warm.
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