There are many chinese and foreign foods with strong odors, such as our Chinese stinky tofu, snail powder, bean juice; Japanese sturgeon sushi and stinky fish jerky; Korean Hongyu; Icelandic stinky shark meat; Sweden's canned salted herring.
Most of the stinky food is made through fermentation, of which the most powerful stinky food is canned herring, tasting canned herring has even become a means used by many anchors to attract fans, many people have followed suit, out of a curious psychology to buy canned herring to try.
People who have tasted canned herring have mixed praise for this stinking god, some people are stinky to faint as soon as they open the can, some people can eat it with relish, but most people still think that the canned herring is worthy of the name, the strong smell of the canned in the house can be around the beam for three days, people with bad hearts can blacken their eyes when they smell it, and they begin to appear in the marquee, and after recovering, it is a sigh: life is so fragile, cherish yourself, stay away from canned herring.
So the canned herring is so smelly, is it the herring itself that smells bad, or the smell that appears during processing?
First, let's introduce the protagonist of the canned herring: The Atlantic herring Clepea harengus. There are many subspecies of Atlantic herring, of which the main one used to make canned herring is the Baltic subspecies of Atlantic herring (C.h.membras). Atlantic herring itself has no odor, and its ecological status in the ocean is very important.
Why? Because it is one of the most abundant and resource-rich marine fish, it mainly feeds on copepods, crustaceans and many plankton in the ecological chain, and is the staple food of most medium and large carnivorous fish, marine reptiles and marine mammals.
When you watch "Animal World", "Man and Nature" and some ocean documentaries filmed by the BBC, you can often see a large group of fish in the sea huddled together, sprinting in a circle for a while, a lot of them, and they can act in unison when dodging predators.
Atlantic herring is such a group of fish, and people can catch a lot of fish in a net when fishing in the ocean. Atlantic herring is an important economic creature in many parts of Europe, which can not only be eaten by itself, but also processed into a variety of herring products and transported to all parts of the world.
There are many kinds of canned herring, some are normally cooked, some are canned with de-prickly slices, and some are canned in whole strips. (This article was originally created by Wen Chen) The most famous canned herring that we usually talk about is only one of them, called canned salted herring, which is also known locally as pickled herring and sour herring.
Because the Swedish word for canned herring is Surströmming, the prefix Sur- means "sour", followed by strömming to refer to Baltic herring.
So how exactly is canned herring made? At what point does the smell appear? Canned herring originated in Sweden, and in the early days it was sealed in light brine to allow herring to be preserved a little longer and to save salt, so that it could ferment naturally. Fishermen in Sweden and the surrounding area preferred this food, firstly because it was cheap (it is not cheap now) and because it was easy to store.
As for the odor, it comes from anaerobic bacteria in the fermentation process, which will produce abnormal odors such as propionic acid, butyric acid, hydrogen sulfide, and acetic acid. The taste of propionic acid is very irritating to the eye, butyric acid is an armpit odor, hydrogen sulfide is a rotten egg smell, acetic acid is a pungent sour odor. So the finished canned herring is a collection of these flavors, and it's no wonder it's so powerful.
In fact, canned herring is not produced all year round, so many canned herring on the Internet are actually fake, imitations. The real thing is about two hundred pieces a jar, and the fresh cans are only available in August and September.
According to local tradition, producers will catch herring in the spawning period every spring and summer, first soak the herring in thick brine water for a period of time to remove the blood, and then cut off the head of the herring, some producers will remove the internal organs of the herring, some retain the internal organs of the herring, and then soak the herring in light salt water and seal it, let them ferment naturally for about two months under the appropriate temperature control, and then start to be sold on the third Thursday of August, which is Sweden's "salted herring day", which has a tendency to become an intangible cultural heritage festival.
Why do canned herring stink so much that Swedes love to eat it? Because canned herring is not actually eaten out of the box, because it is smelly and salty, there is no way to eat it directly, and the Swedes are not shaking M. In order to satisfy the curiosity of curiosity, many people on the Internet challenge to open the can and eat, and then doubt life, which is really not the correct way to eat.
According to Swedish tradition, canned herring is opened in outdoor water, and repeatedly rinsed the herring with flowing water, and then removed the thorns and sliced, placed on the crisp bread slice or pancake, and then sandwiched with cooked potato chips, onion grains, tomato slices, dill, smeared with butter or sour cream before eating (see picture below), so that eating is the local way to eat canned herring, if you open the can, you can eat it directly, one is to go through with yourself, the second is to destroy the natural things, and the third is to waste money.