Is it a crime to sup on a Sleeper Shark
Genus: Somniosus microcephalus
the solitary fish swimming in the dark
waters beneath the Arctic ice
so few and far between
this shark is seldom seen
but in the photographs captured
the curves confirm this clearly is a shark
but unlike its cousins – sleek Silvertips
the Greenland Shark is no beauty
it’s skin blotchy and rough…
On an exchange visit to
an Icelandic ladies’ choir
did I commit that crime?
Our own ladies, scandalised
at the first stop on our itinerary
a swim in the Blue Lagoon
– by naked women brazenly European
walking around in the changing room
were equally horrified in Reykjavik’s
covered market to be offered
seagull’s eggs and Rotten Shark
– kæstur hákarl a national delicacy
but foodie as I am I agreed
to give it a go…
“Best hold your nose”
our host’s advice but not before
I’d caught a whiff like ammonia
I took a small white cube
upon a toothpick and ate
nose pinched
it was not as bad as some
wimpy celebrity chefs have claimed…
I was not told that this was
Greenland Shark nor that
it is now known to be the
longest lived vertebrate
thought perhaps to live as long
as four to five hundred years
one hundred and fifty before
the poor creature is ready to breed
imagine then it’s lonely search
for a mate deep in the Arctic dark
and the secret of this shark’s longevity
– slow living – snail’s pace metabolism
which is why, flesh full of bodily toxins
the freshly caught Sleeper is poisonous
but the peoples of the Arctic
are not ones to waste a food opportunity
and so they figured out to
bury the shark for six to twelve weeks
weighted to press out fluids
whereby fermentation detoxifies
to feed the nation it’s infamous dish
at the midwinter festival þorrablót
Now that the Methuselah nature
of the Greenland Shark is known
it is not legal to hunt or kill this
oldest of fish but fishermen’s bycatch
provides sufficient specimens
to feed the Icelandic appetite
for Rotten Shark – so it was no crime
to taste this long-lived being
whatever my fellow singers said
of the smell, but now that I know
of what I ate, I carry the thought
swimming in my imagination
of this patient, slow-living
denizen of the dark depths
the Greenland Shark…
© Andrew Wilson, 2025
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics invites us to write about sharks as we approach Shark Week! So I dredged up this dark tail…
I can’t say I enjoyed your rotten shark, Andrew, as I really don’t like sharks of any kind, but it was very interesting to read about the Sleeper Shark – is it employed by Trump or Putin? Eating rotten shark is not something I would do.
It is interesting Kim – they couldn’t work out the age for a long time because there is a spur in most sharks that has growth rings you can count but then they discovered that there are some proteins in the shark’s eyes which are there from birth and never change so they were able to do carbon dating on those cells which gave an “in excess” of 250 years and with the latitude of carbon dating that could mean 4-500 years old…
Wow! Fascinating, as well as disturbing. Thanks for the information. How did primitive humans ever figure out how to release those toxins?!! Amazing.
Susan
Indeed Susan and there are other examples like processing cassava into tapioca – the former has cyanide compounds…
Yum Yum! I can hardly wait to try some!! :>) Not!
An interesting piece, Andrew!
It wasn’t so bad Dwight…
Wow! Fascinating facts, if ever an image had the power to terrify … this Greenland shark would be top of my list. Decided to read more about this species ~ “big, old and slow” printed under its name.
Big old and slow is far less fearful than fast, enormous and rapacious Helen – I’d rather meet the Sleeper Shark than a Great White that’s for sure…
Oh I don’t know about eating this. The information is very interesting. Thank you
I imagine it’s better than fermented puffins that the Inuit eat – they won’t even eat those indoors as the smell is so bad lol
Fascinating Andrew 🙌
Thanks AJ
Interesting tale. Ha-ha.😉
The Blue Lagoon had to be closed during the recent nearby eruptions but I will never forget the scandalised women in the group discussing the changing room habits lol
Such an intriguing shark – I never heard of the species before.
There are more things in heaven and earth…
HI Andrew, what an incredible poetic story. This shark is really amazing although I would not like to eat it or any other shark.
Thanks Robbie, that’s a good definition – a poetic story…
Andrew, I like the idea of, after ingesting some of the shark, a part of it lives on within you. Very interesting how fermentation neutralizes the toxins. The ways of the Greenland Shark reminds me a little of Lake Sturgeon.
Thanks Li – writing a biography one piem at a time…