INCIDENTALLY: Fishy Tales
Surstromming, the highly pungent but much-loved Swedish dish of fermented herring, has a habit of offending the uninitiated with its peculiar taste and overpowering smell of rotten garbage.
But now the national favourite, traditionally devoured in the summer months with large quantities of highly alcoholic liquor, has fallen foul of the airline industry which has asked passengers not to take it on board, saying it poses a safety risk. Much to the chagrin of local producers, shops at Stockholm's Arlanda airport were asked to stop selling the notorious delicacy after airlines, including British Airways and Air France, became concerned the tins could explode mid-flight and shower customers with noxious odours that would take many days to fumigate.
Jan Lindqvist, head of corporate communications at Arlanda Airport, said the decision to remove surstromming from the shelves was a purely practical one. "It's nothing to do with terrorists," he said. "We're not saying Bin Laden is going to start using surstromming as a weapon but it is a practical consideration for the airlines." It seems airlines are worried that the swollen tins of fermented fish are particularly vulnerable in the air because of pressure changes during take-off and landing. To make authentic surstromming, herring from the Baltic is caught in the spring and fermented in barrels for a number of months. It is then placed in tins and left to ferment for a further year, bloating the container and creating the noxious gases for which the dish is so renowned. "The cans swell up like a football.,” said Mr Lindqvist. "If it breaks inside a plane it would take two or three days to clean out the ”plane." The decision to remove the pride of Swedish cuisine from Arlanda airport has angered producers of the dish who have called the move "culturally illiterate".
But despite surstromming's long heritage, not all Swedes are sold on the idea of the rotten-smelling fish. Mathias Tornbl”m, a self-confessed surstromming lover from Stockholm, admits many Swedes find the smell overpowering. "It does smell like hell but it's really rather tasty when you try it," he said. He conceded Swedes were unlikely to be protesting en masse about the airport ban: "A lot of Swedes don't like it, to be honest. It's very popular in the north but the majority haven't even tasted it." A British Airways spokesman said that whilst it had not banned surstromming, it would be asking customers to think twice about bringing the swollen tins of fermented fish back home.