the worst food to have ever touched my lips

this is a somewhat belated post, but don't blame me, blame my terrible internet situation. last week there was a festival in my teeeown to celebrate two summertime favorites, kräftor and surströmming. kräftor are crayfish, a swedish culinary darling of late august. as my last experience with them was at new orleans night in burton dining hall (wlcm2thewetlands) was overall quite negative, i was eager to give them another shot. for 50 krona you get a plate with 4 kräftor, a slice of mild white cheese, and an inch and half of crusty bread. the kräftor were delicious. the sundbyberg lyons had steamed them in a a salted water bath laced with lemon and dill. v. simple & v. good.

the same cannot be said for surströmming, the other food whose cartoon representation graced the banners and newspaper advertisements for the festival. surströmming is fermented herring. this rotten fish is not so much a favorite among swedes, but rather something that continues to find a place in contemporary swedish gastronomy as a point of tradition. my swedish teacher told us that no one eats it any more, with the exception of some men of older generations who enjoy the sense of nostalgia it inspires. it has a "rat smell, a disgusting rotten rat smell," she said. i had to try it.

the surströmming booth was located on the edge of the festival premises. the fish's defining quality, its stench, ensures that the surströmming is placed down-wind of all else, especially the talent show. the tweens don't take very kindly to this tradition. of the five of us attending the festival, only bobby, scott, and myself were bold (read: dumb) enough to want to try surströmming. fortunately, we were too cheap to order individual portions, so we split one three ways.

the fish is served in the skin with minced purple onion, boiled potatoes, and a rye-based flat bread called tunnbröd. all in all, the smell was worse than the taste, but i think maybe the texture of the skin was the worst part of all: slimy, sticky, cold, the fish was much better without it. i would be lying if i told you that i enjoyed the surströmming, but i can say that i count it as a valuable life experience.