Not All Meatballs and Potatoes!

Articles

Robin Alan Bell

How Swede it is

Not All Meatballs and Potatoes!
Aug 21, 2003

I’ve eaten witchetty grubs and snakes in Australia, frogs legs and snails in France and smoked eel in England but this one beats all.

Swedish cuisine is not all meatballs and potatoes by any means. How about raw herring, straight from the northern part of the Baltic sea, dropped raw into cans of water? The can is sealed and left to "ripen" for several months, preferably in the sun. The fish is not ready until the can is bulging due to the chemical process which takes place, namely fermenting – or rotting to be precise!
Known to the locals as “surströmming”, this delicacy has been variously described as a cult, a feat of endurance, a terror or simply unbelievably offensive. It dates back to the ethnologist Hülphers in the town of Härnösand in 1780 and you can almost believe that you are eating the original fish from that time when you try it.

Surströmming is usually eaten in August, when the leaves start to fall from the trees. There are many rituals associated with the consumption of surströmming; probably the most important of these is to forewarn your neighbours before you plan to eat it. (It goes without saying that surströmming is eaten outdoors).

Approach the unopened can carefully – there are horror stories of exploding cans – with a can opener and a thick cloth. Place the can opener on the can, cover quickly with the cloth and take a deep breath – this will be the last untainted one for a few hours so savour the clean autumn air. Strike with the can opener and you will hear the hiss of escaping gas. When all is quiet again you can remove the cloth,open the can and there is the surströmming revealed in all it’s glory. Swimming in a dark brown, murky, suspicious liquid. The liquid is poured away into a sealed container from where it can be disposed of “thoughtfully”

Now comes the big moment! Surströmming is normally eaten with boiled potatoes and sliced, raw onions on a special “tunnbrödd” (thin bread). Not just any potatoes will do, though – they must be almond potatoes, so called because of their shape. Take a whole fish from the can, and remove the head and tail. Carefully slice it down the middle. Now remove the insides (yes, these have been left in to aid the fermentation process), open the fish like a book and remove the bones by judicious prodding with a fork. At this stage it would be wise to walk away a few paces and take another deep breath, as you probably haven’t breathed since the can was opened.

Take some fish, potatoes and onion and arrange on the bread and take a bite. The taste is sour, salty, rotten, fishy, and something else. It’s not as bad as the smell, that’s for sure! Traditionally the surströmming is eaten with beer or aquavit in the proportions of one glass of aquavit and/or beer to one fish, but this may be just an attempt to drown out the taste.

Opinions vary as to the origin of eating surströmming. Some think that it was started as a joke. Others are of the opinion that eating the delicacy actually warded off many marauding Norsemen, and others bent on conquering the Swedes, rampant capitalism, and more recently, tourists. Even Genghis Khan avoided Sweden.

Hälsningar till nästa vecka,

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About the author: Robin Alan Bell is an Englishman by birth, but migrated to Australia back in '72. Married and divorced there. Spent the last 3 years living by myself on a remote farm in rural New South Wales with no mains electricity, water etc. All power, heating was from natural resources (solar, wind, wood). "Met" a Swedish girl on the internet, came to Sweden for a holiday, loved the place (and the girl), moved to Sweden permanently Christmas 2001 and married the girl in Easter 2002. Living happily ever after... Email Robin Alan Bell: sosoft@ozemail.com.au

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