Ministry plans five-metre sandwich cake for Culture Night

The Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education will serve what is likely Iceland’s longest sandwich cake during Culture Night on Saturday, mbl.is reports. The cake will be just over five metres long.

The event begins at 3pm in the atrium on the first floor of Reykjastræti 8, opposite Harpa. Visitors will also be offered music and visual art.

Among the programme’s features is a presentation by Tanja Levý of Brauðtertan lifir!, a product line based on the Icelandic sandwich cake.

“The aim is to draw attention to Icelandic food culture and the living traditions connected to food, togetherness and festive occasions,” says Þorbjörg Alda Marinósdóttir, the ministry’s project manager for priority projects and information officer.

She says the sandwich cake is registered as a living tradition by the National Museum of Iceland on lifandihefdir.is, a website operated by the museum. The dish has appeared on Icelandic celebration tables for more than half a century.

A living food tradition

“The sandwich cake has accompanied people across the country at countless milestones: christenings, confirmations, birthdays, weddings, graduations and funerals,” Þorbjörg says.

She describes the dish as a good example of a living tradition.

“Traditions do not have to remain unchanged from one generation to the next to be considered part of our cultural heritage. On the contrary, their vitality lies precisely in the fact that they develop, change and acquire new meaning. New generations take them on, adapt them to their tastes and pass them on.”

Þorbjörg says Icelandic food culture has never stood still. It reflects the country’s history, the circumstances and ingredients available at different times, contact with other countries and changes in the nation’s way of life.

Culture Night offers an opportunity

“Dishes that were once new can, over time, become so firmly established that it is difficult to imagine a celebration table without them. The sandwich cake is a fun example of this development, a tradition with roots outside Iceland that has gradually acquired a distinctive Icelandic character and its own place in the nation’s food and celebration culture.”

Þorbjörg says Culture Night is an ideal opportunity to focus attention on Icelandic food traditions.

“Food is about much more than ingredients and recipes. Food contains memories of people, places and moments: warm kleina pastries in the countryside, meat soup at grandparents’ home, biscuits baked from a recipe bearing the marks of several generations, or a sandwich cake appearing year after year on the same celebration table.”

The sandwich cake remains popular

Sandwich cake making does not appear to be declining. Þorbjörg says it has become more popular in recent years.

“Every year, on Sandwich Cake Day on 13 November, an Icelandic champion in sandwich cake making is crowned. A strong community of enthusiasts has also formed on social media. The Facebook group Brauðtertufélag Erlu og Erlu has nearly 22,000 members who share ideas, recipes and photographs of their cakes,” she says.

“It is clear there that mayonnaise is not simply mayonnaise. Images in the group show Icelandic nature, edible flowers and vegetables carefully shaped into delicious works of art,” Þorbjörg adds.

The ministry’s neighbours, Landsbankinn, will also host a programme at Reykjastræti 6 during Culture Night.