OK, my coworkers are just weird. I went down to Pike Place Market to grab a snack for lunch. Ended up with an oyster shooter (in a souvenir shot glass yet!), some of the Fish Market’s wonderful alder-smoked salmon, and…
Half a pound of pickled herring.
Now, I only got one oyster shooter; and that was mine. I’m saving the salmon for home. But I’m perfectly willing to share my herring. Nobody wants any! More than that, they made faces and visibly shuddered. One of them thought the dill seeds were eyes. Well, that just means more for me. And we’re talking good stuff, too. Not out of a jar.
So. If someone offered you some nice pickled herring, would you eat it?
Like a shot. No question. To illustrate this, two examples below.
Several years ago, when I had very, very little spare cash, and a horribly exhausting work schedule, the big treat was going into the city once a week on my day off to visit a friend. We would get a loaf of bread and a jar of herring to share. Every week. Our big night out.
Fast forward to better times. A colleague who worked in a different office brought a tray of the tenderest, tastiest herring I have ever had to our office party. A couple of weeks later, he asked me to translate a few things for him as a favour. And then said “Hey, I need to do something for you in return. What can I do?” My immediate answer? “Herring!”
Two weeks later I get an email from him saying “Drop by my office.” So I did. And found herring, and lemon slices, and good bread and butter and vodka.
I suggest you get rid of your current no-herring colleagues, and get a few more like the guy mentioned above.
More weirdness. A coworker asked me what I could use the heavy glass shot glass for. I told her I could put whisky in it. ‘It doesn’t bother you that there’s printing on it?’
I used to periodically pick up a jar of pickled herring in wine sauce (I tried the cream sauce once but didn’t like it); like NDP I would eat them on Triscuits (or Aldi’s version of them), with or without cheese.
I don’t remember seeing herring in any of the stores around here, though. Does that make me hard of herring?
I’d eat all of your herring in the wink of an eye if you allowed me, but then I’m Finnish and of the opinion that you can never have too much Omega 3 in your diet.
…
Apart, of course, if it was the kind of novelty flavor that pickling companies think it’s funny to spring on people in Midsummer season. Like the lime-flavored herring we tried a couple of years ago. Even “funny peculiar” doesn’t begin to cover it, “funny oh my god what is this?” is closer to the point. Tasted like the lime flavor came out of a bottle of lime-scented dish soap.
At the street stands that sell the herring, I always get an order of the mussels; paired with a cold Heineken, its a mighty tasty little afternoon snack…
It was $6.99/lb at the Market. That part of my lunch cost less than three bucks. (The oyster was four bucks, but I couldn’t resist and the glass is nice.)
