Sour Herring

At the ICA Cityhallen supermarket yesterday evening to buy bread, frozen pizza, cream, and bananas, I noticed a display of bulging red-and-yellow cans in one of the freezers: a quick inspection sufficed to confirm that, yes, it’s surströmming season again. Strömming means herring and sur means sour, but what we have here is no ‘added lemon-juice’ kind of sourness…

Herring fished in the near-fresh waters of the northern Baltic in spring is processed and canned, but with insufficient salt to arrest all biological activity. In the can, a process of fermentation (some might say putrefaction) takes place, which renders the contents foul-smelling but still edibly non-toxic. Apparently, the hungrily ingenious northern Swedes of yore hit upon this process as a means of economising on the use of salt. From an outsider’s account of this delicacy:

On a sunny balcony in soaring temperatures of 15°C, my hosts laid out a big table for the surströmming banquet. Kalle, the head of the household, bravely takes the tins to the bottom of the garden and covers them in a tea towel. Looking away, trying to protect his nose with his shoulder, he carefully opens them. He tries hard not to inhale as the pressurized stink emanates. Once he’s poured out a suspect, murky brown liquid, he brings the can to the table. The smell is so overpowering, I wonder if somebody nearby has a very bad stomach problem and should make a quick exit to the crapper, or leave altogether. After awhile, though, nobody has moved. The smell can only come from one place. I begin to have second thoughts. Should I really introduce this ‘food’ to my mouth just to avoid causing offense to my hosts? - Andreas Grundtvig.

I have never tried it, and am not at all tempted: interested readers are directed to this English-language surströmming page.