OK, my local Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry this stuff (the manager didn’t know what I was talking about). And the local Scandinavian shop doesn’t have it either (the proprietor grimaced when I asked).
So how about making it at home? From the YouTube clips I’ve seen-seems like a simple process-pack (un-gutted) herring with salt and water…seal in a can …wait till can starts bulging outward! Open can (stand back while fol gases of decomposition vent)-then serve to guests (that you don’t like)!
Incidentally, has anyone ever died from being poisoned by this stuff?
Just yesterday, I donated blood at a local college-I struck up a conversation with the young man sitting next to me-he was an exchange student from Sweden-he loves the stuff!:eek:
You used to be able to mail-order it from thenortherner.com, but it seems now all they sell is snus and tobacco-related products. I have never ever seen it in American shops anywhere.
Now that I look around there does appear to be this place selling it online.
You’re gonna get killed on shipping, though, and it’s about $40 with shipping costs.
As for making it yourself–no idea. Wouldn’t even dream of doing it. That stuff is seriously nasty.
Just be careful where you open it.
I don’t think I have ever heard of someone making surströmming himself but I suppose it could be done if you’re dedicated enough, though I wouldn’t do it myself as I think the professionals are much better at it. There is also the problem that if you don’t live around the Baltic, or rather the Bothnian, sea you can’t get any strömming to start with.
Yep. That stuff makes Limburger smell like roses in comparison. It even smelled worse than a decaying, half liquified possum I found in the cellar once.
I wonder if it can just be made with Atlantic herring. They’re a bit bigger and slightly fattier. That said, Baltic herring is a subspecies of Atlantic herring.
Surstromming was on an episode of “Bizarre Foods” a while back. He was touring embassies in Washington, and the Swedish embassy treated him to Surstromming. They opened the can on the roof, and only one or two Swedes actually tried any. The rest went running back inside as soon as the can started spraying rotten fish juice.
There’s a Swedish Consulate in Boston (that’s where you live, isn’t it ralph124c?). You could email and ask if they’ve got a can laying around.
I don’t think that would be a problem The Norwegians use trout to make a similar dish.
That should tell you something. I’ve mostly only met Stockholm and Gothenburg Swedes. They all swear surstromming only stuff the crazy Swedes up north eat, and they wouldn’t get anywhere near it. When they hear I’ve tried it, their reaction is almost invariably “why?”
However, I do highly recommend trying it, if only for the experience, and I would be interested in seeing this surstromming fest they have in Northern Sweden one of these days…
The same reaction that I got when I told someone that a Chinese shop in Stockholm sold durian.
You could say that people eat surströmming in the North and crayfish in the South. A cousin of mine (who is from up North) once had a combined party which resulted in the Northerners eating the crayfish and we Southerners the strömming.
Hee… See, I don’t find durian that offensive. Maybe I’ve just not had particularly stinky durian.
But crayfish are tasty!
I like them both.
I know. But you’re weird. (In all seriousness, though, if you took your average American or European and gave them a choice between crayfish and fermented herring [after having opened the can], I think 99 out of 100 would choose the crayfish.)
Thanks for the replies…anyway, I saw several video clips of people eating this stuff-it seems you take a tiny bit of it (like the size of a pea) drown it in sour cream,place it on a slice of boiled potato, add chopped onions, and eat on a piece of hardtack bread. Seems like the awful taste would get masked by the good stuff.
Anyway-why don’t they gt the fish (like sardines)? Maybe they need the bacteria to make it good?
I can imagine that salmonella and botulism would thrive in surstromming!
Mmmm…tastes good!
People who like it say the taste isn’t bad, that it’s just the smell. That explanation doesn’t work for me, as taste is majority smell. And then if you get the burps after eating it, you get that same stinky flavor coming right back up. shudder
I’m pretty sure it is gutted, no? I don’t recall there being guts in mine (assuming that is the word you were going for there). I also didn’t have any type of sour cream or onions with mine, either. Just crisp bread and surstromming.