Hello dear readers!
Firstly, it has been some time since our last newsletter, and for this we apologise. Everyone has drifted a little so it has been hard to coordinate, (E is now living on a peninsula in Denmark, Rex is finishing her MFA in Sculpture at the Slade, and Josie has had a baby!), but we are finally back, with fire in our bellies to write.
To get the succulent juices going, we have a guest writer today: Alexandra Mjöll, an Icelandic cook, artist and writer based in Reykjavík. Take a look at her current project @evil_foods_inc; jointly run with Rakel Sigurðardóttir. Together they’ve hosted food events, made the longest brauðterta (sandwich cake) in the world, released a cookbook and sometimes wear matching costumes. As we speak, Alexandra is cosplaying as a tree, having isolated herself to the woods in a remote part of Iceland to study creative sustainability.
Evil Foods Inc and Marigold have a relationship dating back to 2013, when E and Alexandra met in Iceland through a mutual friend. Their friendship blossomed as Alexandra dragged her guests to various Icelandic hotdog stands, and since E has recently moved to Denmark (a country equally obsessed with hotdogs, and for context colonised Iceland from 1380 - 1944), we thought it only right to write the cross cultural hotdog issue literally nobody asked for. This issue is about hotdogs, but it’s also about so much more; we’ll be traipsing across the borders of Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the USA, but mostly we’ll be clasping tight onto that slippery dog to see what’s really underneath its skin - culturally, historically, emotionally, sensually, spiritually… let’s go.
Hotdog Woman
by Alexandra Mjöll Young and Rakel Sigurðardóttir (@evil_foods_inc)
translation by Max Naylor
The Hotdog Woman has had a pretty unremarkable weekend at home in Njarðvík. Not dreadful by any means, but decent enough, all things considered. Treating herself to good, honest food is something she’s not really been in the habit of in recent years. To be honest, she’s probably let herself go a bit and is now doing her level best to lose weight. She’s cutting out bread, and only drinking Diet Coke. These days the contents of her fridge are routinely limited to a tub of skyr, some blood pudding and a packet of SS hotdogs. All ready and waiting to satisfy the worst of her hunger pangs.
When her children were little, Hotdog Woman used to throw hotdog parties, much to the delight of the whole household. The condiments on the table included ketchup, mustard, remoulade, fried onions and sometimes even raw onions. Some people had nothing but ketchup on their dog, others opted for everything except remoulade. Hotdog Woman always went the whole hog with hers though.
Now and again, hotdogs found their way onto the dinner table once she and her youngest daughter, Sveinbjörg, were the only ones left at home. Sveinbjörg never wanted anything except ketchup on hers, so Hotdog Woman gave up on buying all those untouched condiments. She made do with just the ketchup, even though to her it was by far the worst of the lot. When Sveinbjörg turned 18, she moved out, taking the ketchup with her.
The Night Shift is blaring from the radio and Hotdog Woman turns it up. She’s about to phone in, but feels her stomach rumbling. She opens the fridge and slides a single hotdog out of the packet. There are only two left: soon it’ll be time to go to the supermarket and stock up. Hotdog Woman turns on the hot tap and runs it for a while. She lays down the hotdog onto a plate and cuts it up into little morsels, using a tiny knife that’s long since lost its luster, but is hanging on to just enough of a sharp edge to parcel a hotdog up into chunks. When the water from the tap starts steaming fiercely, she rests her elbow on the worktop, stabs the first chunk with her fork and holds it under the scalding Njarðvík water until it looks passable.
This is how she proceeds to eat the rest of the hotdog, nibbling on one bite at a time, boiling hot.
What Did We Do To Deserve This?
by Alexandra Mjöll and E Boyfield
To say Alexandra Mjöll is a hotdog ingénue would be a barefaced lie, she is in fact a very serious published hotdog journalist; her first (and last) piece hitting the scene when she was a fresh faced nineteen year old (see here). Her relentless passion lives on beyond her first foray into the world of the dawg; Alexandra co-wrote our intro today, see above: a fictional vignette of a real person (Hotdog Woman, her actual government name) who was a participant on an Icelandic call-in radio show (listen here if your Icelandic is good). When Alexandra animatedly translated the conversation to E, obviously the first thing to come to mind was a classic Simpsons reference (“Dear Homer, sorry you didn’t want to join me tonight. I left you hotdogs for dinner. They’re thawing in the sink”). Whilst Hotdog Woman’s tekkers are seemingly by choice, Homer’s are resolutely not. The potent symbol of a multipack of hotdogs sadly defrosting in a sink not only conjures pop culture references, but also an extreme disgust response. Hotdogs are a family food, their intended environment being bbqs, kids birthday parties, sports events… good clean hetero things. They should not be associated with these lonely losers. We jest, of course. It’s interesting to note how many feelings this seemingly innocuous image whips up, these no doubt stemming from that instilled fear we all have of ‘dying alone’ (guys, honestly, there actually IS enough love for us all, in many different forms, despite what we’ve been told). Anyway, maybe Hotdog Woman is happy? Aren’t we all just humans, each of us worthy of respect? Can’t we just let her LIVE?! Ahem. Regardless of her unwavering right to eat hotdogs however she chooses, Hotdog Woman’s five minutes of fame made its way to Twitter and of course the sound bite became infamous amongst a certain group of Icelanders. Users reacted with incredulity to her arguably chaotic technique; highlighting that the hotdog and its uses and misuses spark debate and big feelings.
We’re going to try to avoid too much talk of the complicated taxonomy of hotdogs in this issue, we’d be here all day. But we will say this: a hotdog is not quite a sausage, but it sort of is. Jamie Loftus, who’s done the research, talks us through this in the American context in her book Raw Dog (link below). She defines the hotdog as a Cronenbergian child of all the various European sausages (Polish kielbasa, French boudins, German Bratwurst et al), born in the era of the Industrial Revolution. Up until this point, sausages would have been made in each region by local butchers, with the first written record of sausages dates as far back as Mesopotamia. This all changed once hotdog production became mechanised, like almost everything else (it was the style at the time!). If you want to feel mildly ill, watch this How It’s Made (suggested by Loftus as homework)… we all remember the moment Jamie Oliver ruined chicken nuggets for us (fuck off, Oliver), so you can imagine the jist, but this video is really something else. It’s as impressive as it is disturbing; the factory featured makes 2 million dogs per shift. Jurassic Park said it best: “scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.”
The first sighting of the hotdog (pylsa) in Iceland and its consequent rise to fame is equally as muddled as the hotdog origin story. Conflicting urban legends exist on when exactly the hotdog was brought to the island, with some believing that the Danes brought it over. Hard hitters in the game, the Danes have their own well established hotdog culture, and their ‘rød pølse’ (Vienna style hotdogs dyed red) are admittedly pretty good, but might leave a blood red stain on your shirt. Back to Iceland, the main slaughterhouse company Sláturhús Suðurlands, unfortunately abbreviated to ‘SS’, claims that they merely borrowed a hotdog making machine from the Danes from the get go, but other legends claim that a big strapping Dane waltzed into the company and showed them how it was really done. The assertion that SS had control of production from the start bolsters Iceland's own claim on the hotdog. While, of course it is resolutely not a recipe native to Iceland, could at least denying that a Dane brought it over be a type of resistance narrative? Could the Icelandic pylsa be a snappy shiny greasy middle finger directed in a south easterly direction across the North Sea? We like to think so.
Now here we are: flailing wildly in the murky, muddy waters of Danish Icelandic relations. When talking about international relations we’re going on pure gut feelings and armchair observations, which are as follows. Observation 1: Icelanders love Copenhagen; for them, it’s seen as a veritable Nordic Mecca. Some look up to their old Danish overlords, wishing they had what the Danes have: free education, decent welfare and a healthcare system that isn’t on the brink of collapse. Danes got it good and they don’t even know it. Observation 2: Icelanders love to tear Danes apart; boldly taking a dump on Danish language and culture at any chance they get. Residual resentment from the colonial days still lingers in the cold crisp air, and also maybe because for some bizarre reason it is still mandatory to learn Danish in the Icelandic school system. Observation 3: Meanwhile, the Danes are mostly pretty oblivious to the fact they even colonised Iceland, and probably see them as unrefined country bumpkins.
Having skipped out on all the education about Denmark and colonial history, Alexandra lived much of her life completely ignorant to how much of Icelandic culture is a direct Danish import. She was sharp enough to realise that hotdogs weren’t an Icelandic invention, but persisted in thinking that theirs were uniqué. After visiting Denmark last year, to her horror, she found that Danish hotdogs were practically the same, and in some ways, maybe even better. Her life had been a total lie.
In Iceland there’s really only one hotdog that to stand by, the SS vínarpylsa (see ad above), and despite it resembling a Danish hotdog when eaten in its final form, there’s still one thing about it that makes it unique: it’s mostly mutton. Some Icelanders as well as tourism campaigns will try to tell you that it's made from lamb, but they are either lying to you or themselves. You see, Icelanders are extremely protective of their non-official national dish, and outcry ensues for something as seemingly minor as messing with the order in which you assemble your dog. As featured in Alexandra’s illustration at the top of the issue, one starts with the bun, from there the correct order of service is as follows:
1. Raw and crispy onions.
2. Ketchup.
3. Remúlaði.
4. Hotdog.
5. Sweet mustard.
Fuck with this at your own peril.
Loftus also notes this hotdog topping dogmatism in the USA; asking for ketchup on your hotdog in certain States is paramount to social suicide, and confides in the reader that she finds her boyfriends dislike of mustard deeply disturbing; questioning her choice in life partner. Like America, like Iceland; how you embellish your dog becomes a hyper regional badge of honour, a self proclaimed personality trait, and ultimately a reason to ridicule others when they don't share your weirdly specific taste in toppings. Could this brand of hotdog fanaticism be something injected into Icelandic society during the US’s military occupation? For context, the Brits invaded an almost independent Iceland in 1940 (due to Iceland’s pesky impartiality during WW2), and after a brief stay they hastily passed the buck to the USA. The US dragged the populous out of their turf houses and into the ~globalised age~. This new age heralded burgers, a Dairy Queen, the country’s only international airport (still in use today), and almost all of that infrastructure that we know and love like ~roads~. A side effect of this history seems to be that American nostalgia/topping evangelism is ever-present in the hearts and minds of Icelanders.
Just as Americana is a hugely popular aesthetic in Iceland and other Nordic countries, the romanticising is often mutual. European and North American imaginings of Nordic countries are expressed through Borealism. In short, Borealism frames the region in two very narrow ways. The first being: it’s cute and quaint. Prime examples being simplification of Icelandic folklore (trolls, elves) and music (Björk and Sigur Rós, ahem). This obsession has reached a fever pitch; sometimes feeling as though all international audiences want to hear is that all Icelandic artists are “inspired to create by celestial poems sung to them by elves, who come to them in dreams”. The second being: it’s savage, beautiful and strong (think Norse/Viking imagery, a ‘noble savage’ in tune with nature). Northern surroundings are seen as beautiful and ethereal, or inhospitable and harsh. Their food is seen as either cozy and comfy, or refined (cardamom buns, porridge, New Nordic Nonsense) or wacky, brutal and “purely survivalist” (whale meat and blubber, fermented shark etc). Borealism also rears its head in European far right political branding; a lot of Norse mythology was adopted by the Nazis, and the Aryan physical stereotype of a Nordic/Scandinavian person very much still exists today in popular culture. While there are people who are blond, tall and blue eyed in the region, there is of course diversity. The current wave of fascism sweeping Europe will no doubt repurpose these tropes for years to come, as racism and anti-immigrant sentiments continue to rise all over the continent.
The ‘cute and quaint’ framing of the region has become pure marketing at this point. Take for example the Danish word ‘Hygge’ (loosely translates as a feeling of coziness and conviviality). Hygge seems to be among the few Danish words that non Danes seem to know; constantly trotted out in tourism campaigns, adverts etc and is often used when talking about Nordic countries more generally in global discourse. Hygge is not just a descriptive word, it has become a material quality, a lifestyle, and an interior design aesthetic - one so overused that we honestly loathe to see it. Every cafe/restaurant across Europe seems to have aspired to this aesthetic for the past 10 years: can we please move on? We’re waiting with baited breath for zoomer maximalism to hit the high street; we are so very bored of functional chairs, polished concrete floors and ‘atmospheric cosiness’. Hygge aesthetic is especially jarring considering that part of the reason why these countries are comparatively so well off is colonisation and violence, historical and current. It is a clean facade, and many citizens and tourists alike would rather not acknowledge or engage with the less digestible, unpleasant reality.
Borealism also mainly ignores the culture of indigenous people, including the Sámi people in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and the Kalaallit, Tunumiit and Inughuit people of Greenland. When they are included in the narrative, portrayals are often racist, and again play into the ‘savages’ narrative. They are imagined as bloodthirsty backwards people who enjoy killing ‘cute’ baby seals/whales/puffins, and are held back from becoming ‘civilised’ by their perpetual fight for survival in bleak inhospitable snowscapes. The complexity of these cultures is completely lost, but thankfully there are people doing the work of striving for sovereignty and highlighting the foodways of this region in a nuanced and fascinating way, one of whom is mentioned in the links section below (check it out). This work is thankfully readily available to many of us. However, popular history is often written by the oppressors, and histories that are shameful and unpleasant are often overlooked, ignored or downplayed.
One such example, which I’m sure the Danes would rather forget, comes from less than 120 years ago. In 1905, ‘The Danish Colonial Exhibition’ opened at Tivoli in Copenhagen. The exhibition featured scenographies of the Danish West Indies & Greenland (colonies at the time) as well as the Faroe Isles and Iceland (dependencies). These human zoos paraded real people from the colonies and dependencies ‘in their natural habitat’, all for the viewing pleasure of the Danes. Huge yikes. However, the Icelanders weren’t simply a victim of big bully Denmark in this story; at the time, The Icelandic Student Association protested the exhibition. The sentiment was there, but instead of standing in solidarity with the other oppressed subjects, they claimed that their main qualm with the exhibition was that they took offence to being compared to “Negroes and Eskimos”. NoooOooo, Iceland - we were all rooting for you.
For context, Iceland does not have an indigenous population, and records indicate it was first settled by Northern Europeans who arrived in the 9th century AD. Geographically however, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands are relatively close, and share some similar foodways, so we could look to these places as indicators of more traditional cuisine from the region. Some staples include reindeer, musk ox (Greenland), sea fish, seabirds, whale meat/blubber and seal. Whilst a lot of this food is relatively unknown outside the region, there is one traditional Icelandic food with historical and cultural significance that does live rent free in peoples heads: the official national dish, hákarl (fermented shark). The dish is perpetually mentioned in “50 oF tHe WeIrDeSt FoOdS EvEr!!!!” type articles that pop up constantly online, and whilst hákarl is admittedly a hard sell, and an acquired taste (even for a lot of Icelanders), this type of sensationalist journalism is just lazy and rude. Perhaps this is the reason that the hotdog, an import, has become the unofficial but very visible face of Icelandic food, and hotdog stands are some of the oldest food establishments you can find in Reykjavik. It’s hard to find ‘traditional’ Icelandic food that hasn’t been dusted liberally with The New Nordic effect; a meal at this type of high end joint will set you back your life’s savings for two gull eggs and something with seabuckthorn/pine needles. The more affordable and palatable option for tourists and Icelanders alike, is likely to be a cultural import, and in many cases it’s our protagonist, the hotdog.
Countless celebrities have been papped sampling dogs from the iconic Bæjarins Beztu stand in Reykjavík, including a visit from Kim Kardashian in 2016 (see above). Although her presence was initially met with excitement, the visit unfortunately ended up being more of a slap in the face to the Icelandic public. Firstly, Kim didn’t even order her own dog, this was assigned to one of her entourage, lest she even have to momentarily interact with an Icelandic person. It gets worse: she purportedly ordered a dog with only ONE of the aforementioned toppings. Reports also claimed she only ate one bite and threw the rest away. Sacrilege.
On further pondering this anticlimactic interaction, we come to a possibly radical conclusion to our foray into hotdogs... Our final analysis: Kim IS a hotdog. The hotdog IS she. From humble beginnings (starting off as a mere employee of Paris Hilton), Kim is the classic American success story. She is one the worlds biggest sex symbols… and if you hadn’t already noticed, a hotdog very much looks like a juicy greased up dick (we had to address the elephant in the room at some point, readers). The hotdog could not be more of a sex symbol if it tried. Kim’s a hyper capitalistic icon who represents so much more than just one woman, she sparks debate and big feelings, she’s pure evil but we can’t help but love her (or love to hate her) and as we have not so succinctly shown, all of which is arguably the case for hotdogs too. She tastes great, but is she truly satiating? Is it all just a shiny facade, with a bloated sinister underbelly, hiding just out of sight under lashings of toppings? This is not to say we don’t fuck with hotdogs, clearly we do - we had a lot of fun, and spent a long time researching and writing this issue (only to end with this unhinged ‘Kim Kardashian is a hotdog’ take). But dear reader, the hotdog is by all accounts a ludicrous foodstuff, which almost defies a neat conclusion - only batshit will do. Hotdog history is fascinating, and often problematic, and we’ve really dug into a lot of important issues using the dog as our lens. Co-creating this issue has bolstered our joint belief that some of the most interesting stories often lie in the silly, the seemingly inconsequential, the everyday, and we at Marigold and Evil Foods Inc choose to embrace the weird, wild, nuanced world of the hotdog; now and forever, að eilífu, amen.
Thanks for tuning in, fiends! With any luck we will keep it up and get back into the monthly output… watch this space, stay safe, stay greasy xxx
For now we leave you with some links:
Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hotdogs by Jamie Loftus (@jaimechristsuperstar)
The book we wish we had written. Comedian Loftus is very funny (quelle surprise), and this book; part hotdog love letter, hotdog road trip memoir, breakup novel and anti-capitalist critique, made us giggle and drool… and ponder… in equal measure (ew).
Highlights include her watching a man eat an ungodly amount of hotdogs (60+) in a competitive eating contest on Coney Island. The contest is broadcast every year by sports network ESPN; these freaks take yeeting hotdogs down your gullet ! very seriously ! Rubbernecking weird Americana is something that never gets old.
Hvad har vi dog gjort for at ha’ det så godt? by Ragnar Kjartansson
In 2023 Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson produced an additional video piece, probably as an ode to the Danes, for his retrospective at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark. The video piece shows a couple lounging about in their designer Scandi living room, periodically proclaiming what roughly translates to ‘what have we done to deserve this?’ / ‘What have we done to have it so good?’ for 11 hours. This pretty much sums up how Icelanders view the Danes.
Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann is an Inuk microbiologist, Arctic Indigenous foods and fermentation expert and a food sovereignty/Indigenous educator based in Greenland. This talk on Radical Fermentation is fascinating and definitely worth a watch for the fermentation geeks amongst our ranks.