Vínarterta – What would Christmas be without it!
By Elizabeth Handley-Derry
Many of us have memories of Vínarterta at Christmas. I remember my Amma bringing out her thickly iced Vínarterta covered with bright sprinkles. When I was young, it was the icing and the sprinkles that interested me the most. Now, I appreciate the whole cake, especially with a nice cup of coffee. More than that though, I enjoy the time spend with my mother making the Vínarterta and puzzling, with our heads together, to figure out the notes scratched in the margins of the old Lutheran cookbook with my Amma’s recipe in it. So, how many eggs do we add to the cookie part? How much cardamom? Should we ice it this year or is it more traditional to serve it without icing? It is the time together and memories shared, and being created, that makes the Vínarterta so special to many of us.
Historians have chronicled how recipes and traditional foods pass through generations, tying the new to the older generations, creating a rich cultural heritage. While today the Vínarterta does not hold such an important place in the culture of Iceland itself, it has been passionately embraced amongst those who emigrated to Canada and their descendants. For our communities, the Vínarterta has become an important carrier of cultural identity: not Icelandic nor Canadian, but uniquely Icelandic-Canadian.
The Vínarterta came to Canada during the mass wave of Icelandic migration in the latter half of the 19th century. It was a time of extreme hardship for people in Iceland when a recession, combined with the eruption of Askja, caused widespread famine. This is when my Great–Grandmother’s family came to North Dakota and settled just south of the Canadian border, along with many others who had arrived in groups and travelled together across this wild new land. When times became better for the settlers, it was natural for them to remember the desserts that were popular during the good times back home in Iceland. My Great-Grandmother, Gudrun Sigurbjorg Einarsdottir, brought her mother’s recipe of Vínarterta with her when she moved from North Dakota to Manitoba with her new husband, Stefan Arnason. Stefan, newly arrived from Iceland, had received a farm allotment. They settled to raise twelve children on a homestead within the Icelandic community in Piney, Manitoba. Over the years, she made Vínarterta for Christmas, Þorrablót and other celebrations.
Icelandic scholar Jon Karl Helgason researched how Icelandic-Canadians view Vínarterta as an expression of cultural identity. In his article, The Mystery of Vínarterta, he describes how cultural identities diverge in response to different historical forces. Icelandic national identity changed significantly when Iceland got its independence from Denmark. Helgason argues that a defining feature of Icelandic culture, and the key to independence, was the Icelandic language.[1] In the earlier years of settlement, Helgason argues, language would have been important in holding the community of Icelandic emigrants together. But as new generations were born in Canada, there was a process of acculturation and assimilation with the loss of their language. The younger generations began to only speak English. This was reflected in the loss of Icelandic newspaper publications. Helgason speculates that for people in Iceland, a cake originating in Europe, perhaps coming from Denmark, would not hold its significance. But for Icelanders in Canada, the cake, and other cultural symbols would become increasingly more important. In fact, he goes further to assert that with a loss of language you do not have a culture, but rather a symbolic culture.[2] This would account for why the Vínarterta could assume such importance within the Icelandic-Canadian community.[3]
The Vínarterta, as the heart of Icelandic-Canadian symbolic culture, is a very good one, Helgason concludes, as the hallmark of the Icelandic-Canadian identity rests in its dualism.[4] He is drawing on the work of John Matthiasson, a University of Manitoba professor who described the inherent ‘dualism’ in Icelandic-Canadianism: how in the Manitoba Icelandic community, there were two newspapers with opposing views, two churches (Lutheran and Unitarian) and two fiercely opposed versions of how the Icelanders arrived at the Gimli settlement.[5] Matthiasson asserts this dualism expressed in lively debate that fuels a vibrant community. Helgason suggests, then, one reason the Vínarterta is such an apt symbol of Icelandic-Canadianism is because it is a cake with two contrasting aspects, which capture this essential love of debate we Icelandic Canadians, apparently, hold so dear. (We could debate this, of course.)
The dualism and debate of Icelandic Canadians still lives in discussion of recipes. University of Toronto historian, Laurie Bertram, says the debate is hot in terms of what is the “real, authentic Vínarterta.” [6] Put a group of Icelandic-Canadians in a room and there may be little agreement over the number of layers, how thick to make them, whether to use cardamom or almond, whether it is decorated or left plain. [7] Five recipes were included in The Culinary Sage of New Iceland, Bertram surmises, to reflect the debate and reluctance of the author to make a choice for one. Overall though, historians agree that the Vínarterta is one most highly recognizable symbols of Icelandic-Canadian culture. It only exists here in North America. Helgason sardonically summarizes that if Icelanders are made out of “fire and ice”, then Icelandic-Canadians are made out of “pastry and paste.”[8] So, let’s embrace it!
I will leave you with the Vínarterta story from our family. I was thinking about the importance of traditional cultural symbols for communities in times of hardship. My Amma’s family lost their farm to the Dustbowl in the Prairies during The Great Depression. This led them to pack a truck with what they could carry and head west. Perhaps the threat of loss of identity may have been felt more acutely after the Depression and World War I. This may have led to a greater need for a cultural symbol to reconsolidate identity and community. The Vínarterta filled this need. In my own family, my Great Grandfather, who wrote a diary his whole life, describes going to bed one Christmas Eve, just after the War ended, feeling very sad that there was nothing for Christmas. The next day, to his surprise and delight, he describes how his wife, this same Gudrun Sigurbjorg Einarsdottir, brought out a Vínarterta for all to share, which she had baked and kept as a surprise. The joy in his diary is unmistakable, and this story lives on in our family. We experience the same joy in the remembering his story when we are making and sharing our Vínarterta each Christmas.
So, we are looking forward to seeing you all at the Þorrablót this year, and encourage to bring your Vínarterta, your stories, and your joy and enthusiasm for the unique cultural heritage we share.
Elizabeth Handley-Derry
December 2018
References
Helgason, Jón Karl. “The Mystery of Vínarterta: In Search of an Icelandic Ethnic Identity.” Scandinavian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 17, 2007. http://scancan.net/helgason_1_17.htm. Accessed December 15, 2018.
Bertram, Laurie K. “New Icelandic Ethnoscapes: Material, visual and oral terrains of cultural expression in Icelandic -Canadian history, 1875-present.” Dissertation, University of Toronto. 2010.
[1] Jón Karl Helgason. “The Mystery of Vínarterta: In Search of an Icelandic Ethnic Identity.” Scandinavian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 17, 2007. http://scancan.net/helgason_1_17.htm. Accessed December 15, 2018.
[2] Jón Karl Helgason. “The Mystery of Vínarterta: In Search of an Icelandic Ethnic Identity.” Scandinavian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 17, 2007. http://scancan.net/helgason_1_17.htm. Accessed December 15, 2018.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Jón Karl Helgason. “The Mystery of Vínarterta: In Search of an Icelandic Ethnic Identity.” Scandinavian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 17, 2007. http://scancan.net/helgason_1_17.htm. Accessed December 15, 2018.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Laurie Bertram. “New Icelandic Ethnoscapes: Material, visual and oral terrains of cultural expression in Icelandic -Canadian history, 1875-present.” Dissertation, University of Toronto, 2010. pp 73.
[7] Ibid
[8] Jón Karl Helgason. “The Mystery of Vínarterta: In Search of an Icelandic Ethnic Identity.” Scandinavian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 17, 2007. http://scancan.net/helgason_1_17.htm. Accessed December 15, 2018.