Faroese cuisine

Traditional foods from the Faroe Islands include skerpikjøt (a type of dried mutton), seafood, whale meat, blubber, garnatálg, Atlantic puffins, potatoes, and few fresh vegetables.

Traditionally the main source of meat was the domestic sheep, the most common farm animal in the Faroe Islands.

The drying shed, known as a hjallur, is a standard feature in many Faroese homes, particularly in the small towns and villages.

Other traditional foods are ræst kjøt (semi-dried mutton) and ræstur fiskur, matured fish.

Often it is cut into long thin slices, which are called likkja (grindalikkja) in singular form, and likkjur (grindalikkjur) in plural, both hung up to dry.

[5] For several decades, the pilot whale population of the North Atlantic Ocean has been accumulating toxins in their tissues (as the oceans become further polluted by contaminants and industrial runoff), with both Faroese and foreign scientists researching the levels of heavy metals, among other elements, in the whales and their potential effect on human health.

The Department of Occupational Medicine and Public Health, with Dr. Pál Weihe and international scientists like (P. Grandjean), has conducted research for several years on the effect of mercury and polychlorinated biphenyl contamination of the pilot whales.

Research, since 1977 in the Faroe Islands, has led to recommendations of abstaining from the consumption of pilot whale and blubber.

The Heilsufrøðiliga Starvsstovan or "Faroese Food and Veterinary Agency" consulted foreign scientists and issued a new recommendation in 2011.

At the same time they reported that the kidneys and the liver of the whale are so contaminated with mercury, PCB, and dioxin that they are not recommended for human consumption at all.

Hard alcohol like snaps was not allowed to be produced in the Faroe Islands until 2011, hence the Faroese aquavit, Aqua Vita, and other kind of alcoholic beverages like Eldvatn and Havið, made by the Faroese company DISM, were produced abroad.