ICELANDIC SKYR · The Fönn Story
The SKYR Story
Iceland’s original high-protein cultured dairy. Thick, mild, naturally low in fat. The base of every Fönn bowl.
THE ART OF LAYERING
ORIGINS
WHERE SKYR COMES FROM?
Salt was the problem. The island had no salt deposits and not enough firewood to boil seawater, so the usual way of preserving food was closed off. Icelanders fermented instead and built a dairy cycle that wasted nothing. Cream was churned into butter. The skimmed milk left behind became skyr. The sour whey drawn off the skyr, called mysa, went into barrels and kept meat edible through the winter.
Skyr runs all the way through the medieval sagas. It appears in Egil’s Saga, Grettis Saga and Ljósvetninga Saga as food for travelers, farmers and fighters. Archaeologists have since dug up the wooden vats it was made in. Three jars of fossilized skyr sit in the National Museum of Iceland.
A LIVING TRADITION
Made by women, for a thousand years
Skyr was a household craft, and it belonged to women. Every farm kept its own live culture going, feeding it batch after batch the way you feed a sourdough starter, and handed both the culture and the method from mother to daughter. Skyrland, the skyr museum in Selfoss, counts forty generations of them.
That chain held until the twentieth century. When the first commercial dairies opened around 1900, it was those women who taught the dairy scientists how it was done.
THE PROCESS
How skyr is made
Skyr is strained, not thickened. Roughly four parts milk go in and one part skyr comes out, which is where the density and the protein come from. Traditionally the curd was poured into linen bags and hung in a cool room for twelve to eighteen hours, dripping under nothing but its own weight.
It is set with cultures and rennet, which is what makes skyr technically a fresh cheese rather than a yogurt. Households without calf rennet used wild plants instead. Butterwort, sundew, stinging nettle.
A CLOSER LOOK
SKYR AND GREEK YOGURT
| skyr | Greek yogurt | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Iceland, from the ninth century | Strained yogurt traditions of the eastern Mediterranean |
| Set with | Cultures and rennet | Cultures alone |
| Technically | A fresh cheese | A yogurt |
| Milk | Traditionally skimmed | Whole or part skimmed |
| Concentration | About four parts milk to one | Typically less |
| Taste | Milder | Tangier |
OUR NAME
Why we are
called Fönn
Fönn is the Icelandic word for a snowdrift. A patch of snow that stays.
We liked that a snowdrift is dense, cold and clean, and that it holds its shape. So does a good bowl of skyr.
Lauren puts it more simply. “It is pronounced fun in English, and it means snowdrift in Icelandic. White, fluffy snow, like skyr. Icelandic has a lot of words for snow.”
NUTRITIONS
A bowl
starts with
protein
Every bowl starts with skyr, so every bowl starts with protein. A bowl carries 25 to 31 grams. A smoothie runs 25 to 31 grams too. Calories sit between 300 and 420 for a bowl and 390 and 580 for a smoothie, which is a full meal. Add grass-fed protein isolate to any bowl or smoothie for three dollars.
| Item | Size | Calories | protein | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunshine (Sólskin) | 16oz bowl | 300 | 25 g | 3.5 g |
| Hekla Protein | 16oz bowl | 420 | 30 g | 9.0 g |
| Mint Chip (Mosi) | 16oz bowl | 360 | 31 g | 7.0 g |
| Blue Lagoon | 16oz bowl | 350 | 25 g | 10.0 g |
| Sunshine (Sólskin) | 20oz smoothie | 390 | 25 g | 5.5 g |
| Hekla Protein | 20oz smoothie | 580 | 31 g | 14 g |
| Mint Chip (Mosi) | 20oz smoothie | 460 | 31 g | 10 g |
| Blue Lagoon | 20oz smoothie | 460 | 25 g | 14 g |
at fönn
How Fönn uses it
Every Fönn bowl is built in three layers. Creamy skyr at the base, a fruit smoothie layer through the middle, and three toppings of your choice on top. fresh fruit, granola, nuts, seeds, honey, seasonal toppings. The same four flavors come as smoothies if you would rather drink it, and skyr runs through the toasted sandwiches too, in the sauces.
A thousand years of Icelandic sense, in a cup.
A LITTLE MORE TO KNOW
QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
What is skyr?
How do you say skyr?
Is skyr a yogurt?
How is skyr different from Greek yogurt?
Where does your skyr come from?
How much protein is in a Fönn bowl?
OUR HOURS
7.30am – 2.00pm