Canned "sardines" (or pilchards) seen in supermarkets may actually be sprats or round herrings.
Cuisine
Herring have been a staple food source back to 3000 B.C. There are numerous ways the fish is served and many regional recipes: eaten raw, fermented, pickled, or cured by other techniques. The fish was sometimes known as two-eyed steak.
Nutrition
Herring are very high in healthy long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. They are a good source of vitamin D. They are also very low in the toxins PCBs, dioxins, and mercury.
Pickled herring
A very popular Scandinavian food item, pickled herring has been around for a long time. Most herring curing at home uses a two-step curing process. Initially, herring is cured with salt to extract water. The second stage involves removing the salt and adding flavorings, typically a vinegar/salt/sugar solution to which ingredients like peppercorn, bay leaves and raw onions are added.
Once the pickling process is finished and depending on which of the dozens of classic herring flavorings are selected, it is usually enjoyed with dark rye bread, crisp bread, or potatoes. This dish is a must at Christmas and Midsummer, where it is enjoyed with a schnapps.
In the middle ages the Dutch developed a special treat known in English as soused herring.
Dutch street-side herring stallPickled herrings are also common in Ashkenanzi Jewish cuisine, perhaps best known for forshmak salad known in English simply as "chopped herring".
Rollmops
The word Rollmops, borrowed from Dutch , refers to a pickled herring fillet rolled (hence the name) into a cylindrical shape around a piece of pickled cucumber or an onion.
Fermented
In Sweden, Baltic herring is fermented to make surströmming.
Raw
A typical Dutch delicacy is raw herring (actually enzyme-cured) with raw shredded onions. To stop parasites, the herring has to be deep-frozen before the curing process.
Herring is also canned and exported by many countries. A sild is an immature herring that are canned as sardines in Norway.
Very young herring are called whitebait and are eaten whole as a delicacy.
Other means
A kipper is a split and smoked herring, a bloater is a whole smoked herring, and a buckling is a hot smoked herring with the guts removed. All are staples of British cuisine. According to George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier, the Emperor Charles V erected a statue to the inventor of bloaters.
In Scandinavia, Herring soup is also a traditional dish.
In Southeast Alaska, western hemlock boughs are cut and placed in the ocean before the herring arrive to spawn. The fertilized herring eggs stick to the boughs, and are easily collected. After being boiled briefly the eggs are removed from the bough. Herring eggs collected in this way are eaten plain or in herring egg salad. This method of collection is part of Tlingit tradition.
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