We never have the right kind of bread. Slices of boiled potato are too much trouble. So I eat pickled herring by putting some on a small plate, with some of the pickled onions of course, and just eating them with a fork.
How do you eat pickled herring?
I get them in rollmop form, so generally they just get eaten straight off the skewer.
With a fork.
On a Triscuit with Swiss cheese or on sourdough bread with Swiss cheese.
Unfortunately, I haven’t done this in a while because pickled herring triggers my acid reflux.
Only time I’ve ever had it was at a street stand in Utrecht, so if I’m remembering right, I just ate it with a little bit of chopped onion and pickles.
Exactly how I love it. Of course straight out of the jar works too. And now I have a craving…
With vodka, of course. And a piece of rye bread, or just naked.
mmmmmmm
Straight out of the jar, and maybe washed down with aquavit! Skoal!
I prefer the variety that’s in a jar with wine and onions, and eat it straight out of the jar.
On a cracker.
Either straight out of the jar, or chopped up in scrambled eggs.
With my fingers, straight from the jar, while drunk, naked, and watching the home shopping channel.
Is it that much different to anchovies?
Much larger piece of fish and a very different flavour.
They’re sort of the opposite of anchovies.
On a cracker piled high with onions and with a shot of ice-cold vodka.
Crackers. Usually the extra large Ritz-like ones. Sometimes with sour cream.
The only similarity is that they’re both fish.
I carefully arrange the pickled herring in a ring on a large circular platter, set a pile of boiled hot fingerling potatoes within the ring, tip some coarse salt onto them, garnish the potatoes with thin slices of dense German pumpernickel and sliced raw onions with a dash of vinegar and a sprinkling of chopped fresh parsley. I pour out a glass of fine Russian vodka from the bottle I keep in the freezer.
Then I swallow the vodka in one quick gulp and tip the platter into the garbage can.