Stirring Up Skyr: From Live Cultures to Cultural Heritage (original) (raw)

In recent years, the Icelandic dairy product skyr has been transformed from an everyday staple to a national food heritage. Skyr is high in protein and low in fat, and its nutritional value accounts for its international success. However, the domestic and international marketing of skyr glide effortlessly from medieval literature to modern healthy living in promoting skyr as a unique, wholesome, and authentic product: heritage food and Iceland's “secret to healthy living.” In this article, we explore how skyr has been recontextualized as heritage through the cultural staging of skyr-making and through branding efforts. It was not until skyr had become a standardized export commodity that people began to fear that action was needed to protect the traditional way of skyr-making. Picking up on the trend of “heritagization,” pioneered by Slow Food (which added skyr to its “Ark of Taste”) and by small farmers catering to tourists, industrial skyr producers have come around to narrati...