#icelandic licorice

[licoricelove]

Everybody knows I love licorice. I’m a connoisseur who knows types from around the world and appreciates all the many varying tastes, from pellets to rope to salted fish. All sorts of people have given me licorice as presents, often from trips abroad. (Thanks, everyone!) I brought home about a kilo from Iceland. I have this blog about it, updated when I find new varieties. So: I’m a big fan.

Anyway, it finally happened: came across a licorice so hardcore, so salty, so acrid, so DISGUSTING I just can’t eat it. It’s from the Iceland haul and the name, Djöflar, translates as Demons (I learned later). The description on the bag says “stuffed licorice with powerful salmiac” and also “super strong.” I’ve had all sorts of salty licorice with salmiac* — anyone who’s had Dutch “coin” licorice will be familiar. That’s not for everyone, to put it mildly, but I like it. To a point. This Demon stuff is for NO ONE.

So, to describe: I opened the bag a couple weeks ago and, seeing the picture of the front, thought I knew what I was in for. So I ripped the corner open and popped one of these stuffed logs in my mouth. Even before I could bite down on it, it was like my tongue and my mouth and my body knew I should not be eating it. It wasn’t “salty,” it was like pure salt, but with ammonia mixed in. Like it’s a big chunk of poison, not just a little salty. It stings your mouth! I tried to keep eating it but ultimately spit it out. Unheard of! Waited a couple weeks and try it again and it wasn’t my imagination. This is the most vile form of licorice I’ve ever found. (Not the most vile food; that is most certainly durian.)

* Salmiac: extra special salt added to certain types of Northern European licorice. I basically compare it to ammonia because it burns. I’m not sure what compelled anyone to add this to a food, but it’s definitely a thing.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

“Salty liquorice, salmiak liquorice or salmiac liquorice, is a variety of liquorice flavoured with salmiak salt (sal ammoniac; ammonium chloride), and is a common confection found in the Nordic countries, Benelux, and northern Germany. Salmiak salt gives salty liquorice an astringent, salty taste, akin to that of tannins—a characteristic of red wines, which adds bitterness and astringency to the flavour. Consuming salmiak liquorice can stimulate either a savoury or non-savoury palate and response. Anise oil can also be an additional main ingredient in salty liquorice. Extra-salty liquorice is additionally coated with salmiak salt or salmiak powder, or sometimes table salt.”

[mayjackmayhem]

Alright, so I'm writing the next chapter for my fanfic and I wanted to commit to the bit and try some actual licorice to properly write a description of the flavor but I can't put it down, mostly because every time it really starts sitting in my mouth is when my taste buds get mad at me and go "!!!!! NO!!!!! GET THIS OUT OF HERE!!!!!!" and it's getting really upsetting for me

[sakuragozen-345]

Olympic tracksuits (Part 2)

[monsterhugger]

I literally just need to find the degree latitude at which the world becomes habitable for me and currently all I know is Iceland is in that range and the midwestern US is too close to the equator. we’ve got like all of Canada between those two points tho

[egregiousderp]

At this point I don’t blame you guys for asking that every tourist has a return ticket.

Too tired to draw but I still need everyone to be aware of this bizarre interaction I had at work this morning

[hetaari]

not to sound racist and sorry if I do but is aph Iceland mentioned to actually like licorice or is that something someone made up and everyone just took it and ran with it

[lagolagomorph]

DQ Characters and their Favorite Desserts Thread:

Alef: Something plain, but Gwaelin made it so it's his favorite

Gwaelin: Shortbread with a flower embedded into it

Middenhall: Blueberry Pie

Cannock: Carrot Cake

Moonbrooke: Strawberry Sorbet

Erdrik: He has no favorite, but he likes a good chocolate croissant

Solo: Pistachio Ice Cream

Sofia: Mint Chip Ice Cream

Alena: Tiger Tiger Ice Cream or anything Apple

Borya: Licorice Funsorts

Kiryl: Melon Soda (but he will pretend it's something else)

Maya: Gulab Jamun with lots of rose syrup

Meena: Thick Mango Lassi

Torneko: There isn't much he dislikes, but his favorite are his wife's hot cross buns

Ragnar: Not a fan of sweets, but sometimes eats a hard candy if the local kids offer him some

Madason/Five: Dark Chocolate Ganache

Bianca: Angel Food Cake with Strawberries and Whip Cream

Nera: Angel Food Cake with Blueberries and Whip Cream

Deborah: Angel Food Cake with Blackberries and Whip Cream

Parry: All Desserts. He loves them!!!

Madchen: mostly plain desserts, like Scones

Sancho: Big cinnamon fan, loves Cinnamon Buns

Reck/Six: Not into sweets, but he does like a good gingerbread

Carver: he loves marshmallows

Millie: Shortbread with tea

Ashlynn: Strawberry Parfait

Terry: hates sweets. (But will have shortbread with his sister.)

Amon: a good chocolate parfait

Arus/Seven: Anything his mom or Maribel makes. He loves sweets!

Maribel: Apple Pie with Ice Cream

Keifer: Lemon Merangue

Gabo/Ruff: Shouldn't really have sweets, but he really likes chocolate.

Aishe: Bonbons, but only after meeting Arus, otherwise, none.

Mervyn: old man Caramels. Anything else might kill him

Eight: he's a big fan of Coconut, because it's so rare, like a coconut creme pie

Yangus: not a huge fan of sweets, but he does like a good raspberry tart

Jessica: she adores fancy little pastries, especially tiramisu

Angelo: Black Forest Cake, or other such elegant desserts

Trode: he's a fan of scones, especially if Medea makes them

Medea: Scones- she hates carrot cake

Nine: Angel Food Cake with Fig paste and mousse

(Haven't played 10....)

Eleven: A plain chocolate chip cookie (Gemma's are his favorite)

Gemma: Lemon Squares

Erik: Vínarterta or Randalin- it's a layered Icelandic cake

Veronica: Strawberry Shortcake

Serena: Lemon Shortcake

Sylv: Something extravagant and elegant! Style over substance, but they would like rose flavoured stuff

Rab: Scones, specifically Apple cinnamon

Jade: She has a secret sweet tooth for dark chocolate cake with pomegranate filling

Hendrik: hates sweets, but will eat them out of politeness. Probably would like coffee cake

[noctupede]

lille prins gets all the cakes, cookies, kanelboller and sweets he wants🍰✨

he gets absolutely spoiled by other people lets not lie, especially the nordic. he absolutely loves pastries, and often eats snacks or candies (licorice, of course, I can confirm as an icelander that I would eat licorice constantly if I could)

somehow he is still the scrawniest of the entire nordic, can absolutely eat anything with no consequence

[fioredistella]

Iceland loves candy and eats a lot of it. His favourite candies have chocolate or/and licorice. He's a big licorice lover and the saltler the better and some of his favourite sweets are; Opal, a kind of licorice lozenge, toffi lolli, a caramel chocolate licorice qlollipop, Appolo licorice, Noa Kropp, a chocolate malt ball, Prince Polo, a chocolate wafer bar from Poland, Draumur, a chocolate bar with soft licorice inside, Thristur, a chocolate bar with licorice and nougat, Hruan, puffed rice chocolate with wafers, Sirius chocolate, and Lindu Buff, a marshmallow meringue covered with chocolate, Ris, a chocolate bar with large pieces of rice cereal, and Buffalo, a chocolate bar filled with marshmallows. Saturdays are also considered candy days in Iceland where candy is offered at a discount in candy stores and he takes full advantage of this. 

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I recently found out that a lot of surnames came about from occupations. I wanted to do something similiar for my sci-fi story. So, the surnames will also be in all different languages and everyone is multilingual anyway and I'm conlanging lots of languages too. Also, I don't like the 'family name' concept. It is a personal surname, your family doesn't have the same surname as you unless they're in the same job and chose to use the same language. If you change jobs, you can change your surname, if you have multiple jobs you can pick one or do a hybrid. Most children do not have occupations, so maybe their surnames are based on their schooling/apprenticing/desired occupation? There are exceptions of course, like jobless people, jobs that can't be mentioned like a spy, or people who constantly change jobs. Does this make any sense?

Utuabzu: It's not totally unreasonable. Plenty of cultures don't have surnames at all - many Indonesians, for instance, have just one name - plenty of others have additional names that work differently to what we are used to - traditionally, Arabic names are genealogies, sometimes going back many generations, and also include other information like whether the person has completed the Hajj, memorised the Koran, is descended from the prophet Muhammed, etc. - others still are geographic - this is where a lot of names preceded by 'de', 'von', etc come from, they originally just meant that someone was from or otherwise associated with that place. Roman names also included cognomen, names given or adopted by a person because of some notable feature or accomplishment, which is probably nearest to what you want.

One thing you should consider is that people tend to have relatively fixed names, particularly in larger and more densely populated societies, because it makes it easier to know who is who. There's a reason countries like Thailand and Japan forced people to adopt permanent family names in the 19th Century - it was to make it easier to collect census data and track people and know who is who and who they're related to. If people in your society only have a fixed personal name, and a constantly shifting occupation-name, people are going to have to find some way to clarify that when they mentioned Karen Baker, they mean Karen who lives three doors down and was Karen Butcher three weeks ago, and is the daughter of Karen Candlestickmaker.

In this case, patronymics (or matronymics) may be your friend. A patronym is a name that indicates who someone's father is (any English name ending in -son was likely a patronym), and they're pretty common in a range of cultures. Icelandic surnames are almost all patronyms (which is why most end in -son or -dóttir, and aren't inherited), and many Slavic cultures have patronyms in addition to family names (which is why so many Slavic people's names follow a pretty standard formula: [x] [y]evich/evna* [z] - [y] is the father's name, and evich/evna means approximately son/daughter). I don't know of any cultures that use matronyms off the top of my head, but it certainly wouldn't be unreasonable.

*spelling and exact phonology varies between languages. 

Licorice: Almost without exception, pre-industrial societies are interested in keeping track of who is related to whom. This is often due to concerns about inheritance and consanguinity. Who a person is related to is a thing that is known before their job or job class is known, unless they live in a society where jobs are inherited, which isn’t the case in the world you are building.

Naming systems are often used as a way of keeping track of relationships, though not always. In a small community where everybody knows everyone else, names denoting family relationships aren’t always necessary. 

If you haven’t done this already, I think it would be worth spending some time figuring out how your world got to the place where it is now, with everybody multi-lingual, well-educated, and  able to change jobs with some regularity. I’m also getting the impression that family ties or connections aren’t important to them, but I may be mistaken about that. A name is an identifier. Why, in their world, do people identify themselves by their work rather than by their relatives or by some other, perhaps less changeable, aspect of themselves? What historical factors have brought this about?

Feral: I agree 100% with points brought up by both Utuabzu and Licorice. I’d also like to touch on the last two situations - children and people either without a job or with a job that shouldn’t be public knowledge.

Licorice thinks that familial relationships maybe aren’t particularly important in your world. However, indicating the person responsible for the care of a given child, whether that is a biological parent or not, is going to be a much more valuable surname than “Preschooler” or “Future Unicorn Doctor”. Once they’re older, what we would consider a late primary school age, yes, stating that they are the apprentice of a specific master or even just in a particular fields makes sense because you can figure out who they go with - because children need to have someone to be responsible for their care and other adults need to know who that person is sometimes.

For a job like a spy, it would make sense for them to have a cover just like a real world spy would be. It doesn’t seem like Joe the Spy couldn’t get away with introducing himself as Carl the Tailor. 

Which brings up a question you need to decide on - who keeps track of all this? As part of their onboarding at a new job, do the citizens of this world have to submit a name change application? Is it based on the honor system? And if you have a name like Carol Sales Associate and you want to get out of retail, would your name cause you to be immediately discriminated against?

For people without a job, it seems like they would be incredibly marginalized. Would they actually be stripped of part of their identity because they got laid off? That seems cruel. And maybe your society is, that’s fine. I’m just saying, we have a very unjust society right now when it comes to financial instability, but this is really unjust, if possibly a little more honest.

[xhylm]

yall.. im so sad i can't do day 5...

HAHA SIKE, IM DOING DAY 5 OUT OF SHEER BOREDOM

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an average picnic/mackerel battle

855 words || time taken-; 1h 6m

chars-; 🇩🇰-🇳🇴-🇮🇸-🇫🇮-🇸🇪-🇪🇪

amidst all the volcanoes and glaciers in iceland, resides a park, filled with soft luscious green grass with some wild flowers sprinkled here and there. a park bench and some trees making appearances. and in said park, are where the nordic countries are having a picnic.

finland scopes out a good place to set down the picnic blanket norway's been clutching onto. he finds a good spot with just right of a shade to sunlight ratio and asks of the stoic man to set the blanket down. after doing so, sweden sets down some cushions for comfort while norway sets down the basket filled with mouth watering finger foods alongside a jar filled with candy and some akvavit set aside for the resident squishy man. denmark had been talking to iceland, practically to himself with how little words the younger was saying, up until be decided to unpack the picnic basket and hand out some things to the other nordic states; sweets and a whole bottle of booze for fin, some packed meatballs for sweden, some licorice for himself, and some mackerel for..

oh.

everyone seems to be thinking the same thing. "there's only one box of mackerel? how odd. nor, didn't i tell you to pack at least three boxes?" finland speaks everyone's mind. "i did. but, i think i had.. eaten.. two boxes before coming here," he says, already eyeing the box in the obnoxious man's hands. norway continues, "i didn't have enough time to make more." subconsciously, he reached his hand out to grab the box.

iceland, however, took this as an attack. he swatted the older's hand away and grabbed the box. "c'mon, nor. be nice to your younger brother, won't you?" he smiles, oh if a look could kill. not wanting to join the squabble happening, finland and sweden dig into their assigned munchies. while the brothers were fighting, denmark was simply observing, subconsciously munching on his licorice.

norway, however, decides not to be the doting, older brother he usually is and grips the box with vigor. "and who do you think prepared this. hm? my dearest younger brother." chaos ensues. iceland promptly gets up makes a mad dash to the nearest restroom so he could lock the door and eat it in there. norway follows suit, chasing after iceland. "oh so now you wanna be greedy!? screw off punk!" he says right before tripping and getting the box snatched off the ground and beelining right to the door of the rest room. iceland gets up and tackles his older brother and begins to roll around in the grass whilst each try to grab the simple box of prepared fish they have been fighting over for ten minutes.

meanwhile, back at the calm that was the picnic blanket, "should i go split them up?" denmark asks, still munching away on licorice while reaching for another small jar in the basket. "no, let them be. they're just being brothers! it's nice to see them get along. right sweden?" finland says, sighing after taking a swig of alcohol and popping a piece of candy into his mouth. sweden just responds with "mn." and keeps the container that held his meatballs into the basket and lays his head down on one of the cushions he brought over.

the pair return from the little escapade, panting, with mr puffin roosting on iceland's head, holding onto the box with his wings and beak for support. norway's hair looked like he just rolled out of bed with his iconic hairpin and troll cellphone sliding off his unclipped bangs. iceland's earmuffs being pushed up and off his head with one ear being uncovered. "and it doesn't seem like you need to, the puffin did it for you." finland states, scrunching up his candy wrappers and putting them into a plastic bag they brought.

denmark tries to feed mr puffin a stem of licorice before getting sqwaked at. luckily finland catches the box just in time and prevented any spillage from happening on the perfectly soft blanket. "here you go ice!" the mom of the group hands the white haired boy the box and tells him to eat it, smiling and staring daggers at norway. iceland stares at finland in admire and respect before opening the box and finding out that there was no cutlery. ah. an oversight. denmark points out in the middle of everyone's silence that there were toothpicks that sweden used for his meatballs in the basket. iceland almost praises and thanks him vigorously before realizing that all of the ten toothpicks were used by sweden; one for the meatballs, one he dropped into the dirt, and rest he somehow constructed into a horse out of sheer boredom.

iceland sighs and puts the box down next to him as he sits on the picnic blanket, he even contemplates on just using his hands or better(worse) yet, just using his mouth when out of the blue, estonia drops down via a rope from the tree they've been sitting under. "hey guys! i got a fork, iceland, you need it?" everyone just stares at him in quiet bewilderment.

[aprillikesthings]

I lead part of EfM thing today (see earlier posts) and it went well ahhhhh thank God

and I've made my lunches for the next week!

and I'm munching on a salad

and all day I was looking forward to this, the moment I can (re)watch MORE SHE-RA

I've barely worked on my longer fic this weekend (other than copy/pasting a bunch of things Nate said after the show ended into the notes section of the doc) and tbh rewatching the ACTUAL SHOW is hella distracting bc with twenty eps left we're going to start getting into more of the really high-stakes stuff

Also, true story: I originally watched, like, the second half of season 4 and all of season 5 in two days of marathoning with Daci. So quite frankly? The last, like, third of the show is just kind of a blur to me now.

SO LET'S GO

s4 ep7 Mer-Mysteries

A mission in Dryl went badly, they've figured out someone's telling the Horde what they're doing, they're not tracking Adora because she wasn't even there--

YES

plz enjoy Sea Hawk's faces

Bow's sudden nervousness reminds me of when I was in line at the TSA in Dulles airport and was weirdly nervous. I had no reason to be nervous. AND YET. I'm usually totally fine at TSA? But the people at Dulles were scary!!!

(I was way less nervous coming back from Iceland, despite knowing I had Kinder Surprise Eggs in my suitcase. Which are actually illegal to bring into the USA. You can buy "Kinder Joy Eggs" in the USA, which do not have the toy, but the ones with the toys are against the law! Anyway I bought them for Daci. I was only nervous for a split second at customs in the USA bc they asked me what I'd brought home from Iceland and I was like...wool yarn. books. sweets (I'd also bought licorice and chocolate). But he just waved me through. WHEW.)

she's still big mad about this lolol

BUT she's right a spy IS the only thing that makes sense (but also the audience knows shit they don't)

Pearl?? A Pearl who knows too much?????

c'mon I had to

lolol they lampshaded the way lightning keeps striking when Mermista says something

to be fair she IS the most recent addition and the one they know the least

oh hey I also write everything in purple (or lavender) ink

lol

oh, shut up

well not this episode, specifically

LOLLLLL

honestly this is a lot like the DnD episode

so on the one hand, I know Flutterina is doing this to make them fight, but on the other hand Glimmer is right; on the other OTHER hand, I also would prefer a warning before being forced to see my abusive parent having free range of the castle I live in

BAHAHAHA I read Nate saying these two were interrupted on a date night, but also plz notice the colors of the flowers, it's literally most of the lesbian pride flag, they were SO unsubtle

The Ken from Plumeria is talking to the pastry chef from Dryl with the super cute outfit, and she looks bashful for a second after this screenshot; I am now shipping this and no one can stop me

speaking of ships (yes I know this isn't meant to be shippy lol)

a youtube video titled "it's raining on your window and you live in Bright Moon Castle ASMR for sleep 4 hours"

(....I'd listen to that)

(On a related note, mynoise dot net has a bunch of rain sounds on the website, and it also has an app--it's seriously the BEST website/app for ambient sounds because they're so adjustable and never repeat, and I just want everyone to know about them. The rain and ocean sounds are great on earbuds to cover up snoring so you can sleep!!! Worked better than my fancy earplugs while I was on the Camino and sleeping in all those hostels)

And back to the cartoon, where there's obviously suspicious shit happening because people seem to be in two places at once and their communications thing got shattered

oh so her name IS just The General

Flutterina (aka Double Trouble) has got to be like "oh my god wtf is up with this dude I cannot handle this bullshit"

Once again Glimmer proves that her and Catra are actually very, very alike

BUSTED

OOHHHHH they set up a trap I forgot, this is amazing

Adora: "we created a diversion :)" Glimmer: "You were a really good actress. For once."

pfft

Anyway Double Trouble is confessing the whole plan

:(

poor Mermista :(

there's a creepy-ass moment of seeing part of Horde Prime's face as he smiles, roll credits

[mivolasvivi]

14 ^^

Black licorice! Love the intense flavor and chew. Someone from Iceland gave me some Icelandic licorice candies once and now I seek out Nordic licorice at any candy store I go to. Just recently got some nice Finnish licorice ^^

[butterflies-and-bumble-bees]

watching markiplier's icelandic(european/scandenavian) candy tasting video

and i can tell im scandenavian cause lord do I want to eat a pound of licorice rn

[maythray]

finally found the icecream shop in iceland that i got the really good licorice icecream from.. i need to find out how they make it its so good ive been thinking of the flavour for months