2 ms·
I love fermented things on the whole, seriously (including e.g. pickled herring) but despite being outside and having the can opened underwater at a progressive
by mcfunk 8y ago
I love fermented things on the whole, seriously (including e.g. pickled herring) but despite being outside and having the can opened underwater at a progressive dinner party, the smell was god-awful and the little bits that got on our clothes and skin were following us all through the other places we went. Just couldn't seem to get it off. As a lover of strong cheeses as well I have simply never had anything remotely comparable. We ate with cream and crackers and dill and washed down with aquavit which was necessary to attempt to get the taste out of the mouth.
I wholeheartedly agree with this wikipedia quote:
>German food critic and author Wolfgang Fassbender wrote that "the biggest challenge when eating surströmming is to vomit only after the first bite, as opposed to before".
For the record I did have a friend who thought it tasted pleasanter than it smelled, so clearly as with everything people have experience.
But the joke we were told was "In Sweden this is how you let your neighbors know you are having a party before telephones" -- because the smell will travel through the whole neighborhood.
The hosts of this party had also left the can in the basement for a year+ as intended. Perhaps that heightens the effect.
- Nimelrian 8y agoGermans have experience with Surströmming. > In 1981, a German landlord evicted a tenant without notice after the tenant spread surströmming brine in the apartment building's stairwell. When the landlord was taken to court, the court ruled that the termination was justified when the landlord's party demonstrated their case by opening a can inside the courtroom. The court concluded that it "had convinced itself that the disgusting smell of the fish brine far exceeded the degree that fellow-tenants in the building could be expected to tolerate".
- XparentX 8y agoGreat story! A friends of my parents visited us when we lived in West Africa in the 80s. They brought with them surströmming and without telling asked my parentd to invite som other norrlänningar (northerners, from the north of Sweden). We had a houseboy and our friend told him, “come here I will show you something special”. Well, they went outside and he opened the surströmming tin. In a split second all the insects of Africa showed up (exaggerated). The houseboy said: “sorry mister, sorry mister, the food is spoiled”. He told the houseboy, “follow me now you will se something more”. They took the surströmming inside and showed the dinner guests who cheered and was very happy. The eyes of the houseboy became big as a saucers. He tried to give the houseboy money if he eat some surströmming, even a whole months pay, but he refused.