NPR

Mix, Add To Metal Pot, Then Bury In Hot Lava Sand: How To Bake Bread In Iceland

Traditional Icelandic lava bread is a sweet rye loaf baked in metal pots that are buried in volcanic sand.
Siggi Hilmarsson says the traditional way to eat lava bread is with butter, boiled eggs and smoke trout or salmon. (Karyn Miller-Medzon/Here & Now)

The Blue Lagoon, a quick drive from Reykjavik’s international airport, is a tourist mecca. The man-made pools that draw water from the nearby geothermal plant are open for visitors up to 17 hours a day at the peak of summer. Even in the winter they’re filled long before the sun rises.

But 90 minutes northeast of the city, in a largely agricultural region surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, there’s another set of geothermal baths and saunas.

“There’s no plumbing, no switch on or off … it’s just a hot spring,” says Siggi Hilmarsson, the managing director of.

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