Have you ever had casu marzu?

  • Crosses Floater’s name off list of “People who I’d party with” -

I was at a party hosted by some Swedish expats in Baltimore, and we started playing a trivia game. I won a jar of pickled herring.

I shall never again party with Swedes.

B-b-b-but, pickled herring is a delicacy.

Surströmming season started a couple of weeks or so ago.

Just so you know. In case you have nowt to do this weekend.

And so did the crayfish season.

Well that’s my weekend organised.

So I’m probably being whooshed, but how can a canned food have a season? Isn’t the whole point of canning so you can have the food whenever you want?

The fish are caught in the spring, salted and stored in barrels for some time until they are ready to be canned. After that there is a period of fermentation in the can until the whole process is finished and they are ready to be eaten. All this has turned into a tradition that the third Thursday in August is the grand opening night of the surströmming season (until 1998 there was even a law stating that selling was prohibited before that day). Of course the real connoisseurs claim that one, two or even three years old cans are much better.

And the cans will actually swell from the built-up gasses, if left long enough.

Um. Mama Excellent raised us kids with the knowledge that one should never, ever eat from a swollen can - that’s botulism country. :smiley:

In a food where all the wee beasties are supposed to have been killed off, yeah. For surstromming, swelling is not a bad thing.

As in, venues where everyone is drunk off their gourd?

That was the situation the time I munched on an insect larva. Mealworm, not maggot, those would make me puke.

If it is anything like the german pickled herring rollmops I can’t believe you hated it, they are downright delicious! I’ve actually had random cravings for some and searched for to no avail.:frowning:

Question: I’ve seen pickled herring at my local American supermarket. They also have pickled herring in sour cream or some kind of yogurt. Is that surstromming? It doesn’t say on the side of the can

I love rollmops, and they’re ubiquitous where I’m at (go to any Eastern European grocery and you’ll find them. Chicago is chock full of Eastern European groceries), but I can easily believe somebody hating them. Pickled fish is not exactly an easy sell for the average American palate.

No, surstromming is nothing like pickled herring, except that they’re made from the same fish. I LOVE pickled herring. Surstromming is just something else entirely. I’ve only been able to mail order it here in the US. I’ve never seen it at a store.

Surstromming is what happens to herring if you don’t pickle it properly.

I think you nailed it, although some connoisseurs claim that you should drink milk instead of vodka.

I can’t say I have eaten rollmops, but I had a very delicious pickled herring in Duisburg the other year.

As a professor in food chemistry put it “All pickling and other food conservation processes is controlled decay and if you don’t follow the recipe minutely you run a high risk of dying”.

Casu Marzu, what eat cheese, gross !

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM maggots, drool .