Catch a Pickled Herring

Well, Folks, it's looking like Cupid is going to have a tough time traveling in our neck of the woods tomorrow. We've got a winter storm forecast for tonight and tomorrow and it's supposed to drop 4 - 8 inches of snow with wind. Could be a nasty one from what the weatherman is saying. So poor Cupid could get frostbite just wearing that diaper.

And "tusen taak" (ScandihOOvian for a thousand thanks) to Golfwidow for the guest entry that she provided me. She even did research on lutefisk before she posted her entry. She may not be Norwegian/Swedish but at least now she's educated!!

Another delicacy that I haven't written about is Pickled Herring - ScandihOOvian Soul Food. If you haven't ever eaten it you've missed dying and going to heaven. It comes in three flavors - pickled herring in wine sauce, pickled herring in cream sauce, and just plain pickled herring.

Remember I've written about all the fishing that my father did, especially ice fishing in the winter. He would bring all the Northerns home and they would become pickled fish. They were pretty good, but not as good as true pickled herring. Herring are small fish that swim in huge schools off the east coast of Canada and off the coast of Norway.

To make pickled herring (fish) you cut them into small pieces, layer them in a bucket with onions, lots of pickling spices, sugar and vinegar. They are truly pickled in about two weeks, but lots of ScandihOOvians are so anxious they eat them after two or three hours!! Pickled herring isn't nearly as disgusting as lutefisk with all that lye!!

Speaking of lutefisk, I was going through my mother's old Swedish recipe books the other day and I managed to find this classic recipe for making lutefisk:

Start with 1 codfish and 1 slightly used dragon ship.

Carefully remove one strake from the dragon ship.

Filet the cod and salt it. Place the cod on the strake.

Fill a pot with a solution of water and lye.

Place the strake and the cod in the pot overnight.

Drain the cod and the strake.

Throw away the cod and eat the strake.

Now, talking about pickling - the ScandihOOvians have been known to pickle their innards too. They use such things as Aquavit and Glogg. Aquavit is a beverage distilled either from potatoes or grain and has various things added for flavor such as caraway or anise. So you see the Russians weren't the first ones to put potatoes to another use other than eating.

Now Glogg - that's another story. Remember that the ScandihOOvian countries are dark in the winter. When we lived in Iceland the sun would come up around 11:30 a.m. and be gone again before 2:00 p.m. Those poor people had to have something to keep them from going stir crazy so they brought out the party animal in themselves and consumed things like glogg.

Here's another recipe from one of my mother's old Swedish cookbooks - this time for Glogg:

8 ounces water
1 cup raisins
3 cinnamon sticks
5 whole cloves
12 cardamom seeds
2 dry orange peels
Boil ingredients for 10 minutes in saucepan, then add:
1 gallon port wine
One 750-ml. bottle brandy
16 ounces rum
1/2 cup sugar
Bring to boil and let simmer 1 minute, then turn off burner and ignite. Allow the mixture to burn for about 15 seconds. Serve hot.

Now that would certainly light up the night, huh? Oh, Uff da and Feeda!!

Remember - Uff da is when you step OVER it - Feeda is when you step IN it!!

Well, with all of that I'm going to sign off now and leave you with the creme de' la creme of all Swedenland - the Swedish Chef:

Yorn desh born,

der ritt de gitt der gue,

Orn desh, dee born desh,

de umnbork! bork! bork!