Fermented herring is ususally enjoyed with crisp bread, chopped onion and sour cream. Photo: © Patrick Trägårdh / PRESSENS BILD

Come to the world’s largest fermented herring festival, they said. Admittedly, it doesn’t sound like the most tempting of offers. Even in its native tongue, surströmming has a certain, well, sour ring to it.

But, ever one to rise to a challenge, I find myself bound for the Swedish village of Alfta in the northern county of Hälsingland, the heartland of this strangest of Swedish delicacies.

Surströmming was an invention born of leaner times. To save on the cost of Swedes’ all-important winter supply of salt herring, the amount of salt was reduced, causing the herring to ferment instead.

The Alfta surströmming festival was established in 1978. The first festival attracted about 400 people. These days a number somewhere around 1,200 is more common.

The venue is an enormous local ice rink where every year dozens of long trestle tables are laid with paper cloths and plates, plastic cutlery, piles of thin hard bread and bowls of chopped raw onion. Behind the scenes, 500 kilos of potatoes are boiled and two 200 liter plastic barrels of surströmming are breached, drained and decanted into foil containers.

Snaps please!

At a lakeside pre-party thrown by the organizing committee, I am regaled with tales of legendary surströmming eaters (Lasse ate 28 in five minutes before running out the back to vomit) and fueled with cold beer and strong Swedish snaps. The latter is a necessary precursor, I am told, for the first timer.

My first bite is getting closer and the tension in my stomach is mounting. As we move toward the festival venue the slow trickle of people becomes a buzzing throng. The excitement in the air is palpable. We chat and laugh, complete strangers, united by the warm glow of snaps in our bellies.

And then it hits. As I file through the narrow door into the ice rink the crystal-fresh Swedish summer air disappears; replaced instead by a rank, dense and clinging stench, the like of which I have never even imagined, let alone smelled before.

This is what everyone has warned me about. This, they said, will be my make or break time. I have to go on; to save face. The smell is worse than the taste, they said. God, I hope they are right.

Moment of truth

What follows happens quickly. Sat in long lines, a thousand people in a tight huddle, the sheer level of noise conspires with the heady air to make time stand apparently still. Whatever is happening I don’t really notice it. Then, from nowhere, my first herring appears flopping lifelessly onto my paper plate.

It looks more appetizing than I imagined; for a headless, fermented creature. I work quickly, following the animated instructions from the woman opposite. Before I know it, I have gutted and filleted the creature, cutting each of the two fillets into fingernail-sized pieces, buttered the bread, dotted it with herring pieces and onions, and topped it all with slices of steaming boiled potato. I'm ready.

My neighbor charges my glass with a generous measure of snaps and I gather my wits and my stinking sandwich. The crowd falls silent. All eyes are on me. My nose is screaming for air, my throat for a drink and my sanity for a hamburger with fries. I raise the sandwich to my mouth and in one swift movement ingest as big a chunk as I can bite off. Chew once, twice, three times and swallow.

Sweet and Sour

Delicious! The word comes out before I even realize I’m saying it. And I mean it. Pungent, aromatic, head-filling salty deliciousness. “He likes it,” someone exclaims and toasts are raised and cheers cheered as another surströmming slithers onto my plate.

I managed three in total. Not as good as Lasse’s 28, but at least I kept mine down. After dinner I danced (badly) and drank (well), and made new friends (easily). Best of all, though, was the smell. I don’t know when it happened, but by the time we left at two in the morning I didn’t even notice it anymore. Surströmming: I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Five facts about surströmming

1. Surströmming season runs from the end of August to late September.
2. Cans of fermented herring first appeared around 1890 and were produced by Ulvö Gamla Salteri, by the north coast of Sweden.
3. Sweden produces 800,000 cans of surströmming annually, 16,000 of which eventually leave the country.
4. In 2005, the seven largest surströmming producers in Sweden canned 600 tons of herring between them.
5. The world’s first surströmming museum opened its doors in Skeppsmaln, close to Örnsköldsvik, north Sweden, in May 2005.

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Rob Hincks is a freelance journalist and editor based in Stockholm. He is the Eat & Drink editor for Scanorama magazine and contributes regularly to Condé Nast Traveler, as well as a number of other English and Swedish magazines and newspapers.

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.

© Photos:
Photo 1: © Patrick Trägårdh / PRESSENS BILD

Classification: A107ENa