Chef Malin Soderstrom is bent on defending the reputation of Sweden’s foul-smelling delicacy Surstromming – canned herring left to ferment over months.
From her seaside restaurant in the small fishing village of Skarsa more than 200 kilometres north of Stockholm based in a former herring processing factory, Soderstrom tries to defend the delicacy’s reputation. Herring caught in the Baltic are salted after being caught and left to ferment for months in barrels before they are canned.
But with customers down due to Covid-19, Soderstrom and her sister Anna called off their own surstromming day this year. “It smelt a lot better than I thought it would, and the taste was good. It was kind of strong, kind of umami,” he said, sitting on the restaurant’s balcony overlooking the village’s small harbour.
In one such video, a group of friends in the US opened the can at a table indoors, retching and choking before eventually trying the fish.