Has Iceland Forgotten the True Meaning of Sprengidagur?

IKEA is now the most popular restaurant in Iceland, both by visits per year and by volume of food served. The country’s most popular restaurant is not a restaurant.

The Reykjavik Insider :

Arnar Stefánsson, the restaurant manager, said that the most popular day of the year is Sprengidagur (Shrove Tuesday), a time when Icelanders traditionally eat salted meat and yellow beans.

I hope this isn’t narrow-minded of me, but I have difficulty accepting that anything traditional can be celebrated at a buffet in a furniture store. It also suggests a deficiency of culinary sophistication. Perhaps English-Icelandic translators should put down the Halldór Laxness and start working on Escoffier.

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