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- Fermented herring (surströmming)
Fermented herring (surströmming)
Small Baltic herring are caught in the spring, salted and left to ferment at leisure before being stuffed in a tin about a month before it hits the tables and shops. The fermentation process continues in the tin; ‘souring’ as the Swedes refer to it, and results in a bulging tin of fermented herring or surströmming. The aroma is pungent, and the taste is rounded yet piquant with a distinct acidity. The fermentation originates from a lactic acid enzyme in the fishes' spine.
When do you eat surströmming?
The end of August is popular, and there is a special surströmming festival in Alfta, Hälsingland in the north of Sweden. But surströmming enthusiasts prefer to savour the previous year’s vintage for tenderness and a fully mature flavour.
Where can you eat surströmming?
Outdoors is best. Always.
Who eats surströmming?
Traditionalist Swedes, food lovers and adventurous tourists.
How to eat surströmming like a local:
As the tin is pressurised, open the surströmming in a basin of water. Wash it, gut it, and wrap it in buttered tunnbröd, a type of sweetened flat bread, with slices of almond potatoes and diced onion. Accompany with beer, snaps and lots of friends.
Commercial fishing
A batch of herring freshly caught from the Baltic Sea. Swedes have two names for herring, depending where in the Baltic they are caught. Herring is a favoured food for seals, cod, other large fish and Swedes, who like them both fried and pickled.
Photo: Karl Melander/imagebank.sweden.se
Commercial fishing
Photo: Karl Melander/imagebank.sweden.se
Fermented herring
Photo: Tina Stafrén/imagebank.sweden.se
Fermented herring wrap
Photo: Magnus Skoglöf/imagebank.sweden.se
Fermented herring
Photo: Lola Akinmade Åkerström/imagebank.sweden.se