It is still possible to buy minke whale sashimi or lobster tails with wasabi in Reykjavik's better restaurants. But conspicuous consumption in crisis-hit Iceland is being replaced by a newfound parsimony in the form of blodmör black pudding.

"We are starting to eat blood sausages again - things our grandmothers made," says Andri Snaer Magnason, one of the country's leading novelists. "It reminds us of a generation that came through a crisis with a strong set of values and helps us realise that these were the real values."