Volcano Bread

This is a little video about baking bread underground.

In my research of "cool Iceland foods" (very possibly my actual Google search) I came upon the Rye Bread Experience offered at Laugarvatn Fontana Spa, just about an hour outside of Reykjavik. So, I emailed them, and with a little friendly back and forth, arranged a day to come by and film. Easy! This producing stuff wasn't so hard after all.

So my cousin and I went, and we filmed, and we ate dense, sweet, molasses-y bread that Viktor took straight out of the bubbling sand, topped with an alarmingly thick cut of Icelandic butter that looked like cheese, but wasn't. We learned about the geothermal activity surrounding Laugarvatn, which translates to "hot spring lake," and how locals from nearby share the six geothermal "ovens" for personal cooking, like slow-cooked lamb. 

The experience was unforgettable, and my goal with the film was to share that with you. Sadly, I've only got picture and sound to work with, so what's missing from this video is the taste of that bread, and the feeling of hot steam against your minimally exposed skin (because despite that geothermal heat, damn it was cold), and the inescapable smell of sulphur bursting from the earth. 

Tragically those things can't be uploaded to YouTube (yet) but I hope I managed to capture and communicate this day - how a place can be both exotic and surreal yet entirely colorless; how an experience can be firmly rooted on earth but completely dreamy. Grey, drab, drizzly, and magical. This is Iceland to me. It's just another day on a foreign planet.