Fishy

Cultural milestone time.

Some swedes eat rotten fish. We had some friends round for a haggis supper the other night. As they ate it, expressing surprise that it wasn't quite as weird and unique as they hoped (no legs? why does it taste so edible? where are all the yards and yards of glistening offal we were promised?), it was suggested that I ought to be introduced to this charming custom with all due haste.

There's a general election here in Sweden at the moment. You put coloured bits of paper in envelopes to express your choice. I didn't get as many votes as my wife, I'm not yet trusted to help pick out a government yet, just local mayors and county bigwigs. This is probably because I hadn't eaten enough surströmming.

Your democratic right.

We got invited to a pickled fish party the following week, luckily. Following my indoctrination, I'd describe it as bearable.

Most things are bearable if you smother them in enough cheese and potatoes. Possible exceptions include oil spills, Strictly Come Dancing and David Cameron. But slushy fish, pink, ripe and fizzling slightly in its briney tin, is no different. You can tell it must be delicious because of the way the flies cluster round the table.

Joking apart, once you get past the smell, it's no worse than (say) jellyfish. Or barbecued mealy worms. Or the pickled eggs that you find on a dusty top shelf at the chippy, the ones full of rust-coloured vinegar where the lid has corroded on to the jar with the strength of a good weld. Or any of the other odd things I've eaten.

I could get past the smell because my cold hadn't passed. I got passed the flavour because it's not unpleasant, actually, and because it's better than the medicinal aquavit you wash it down with. The texture is weird, though. Like a thousand tastebuds screaming out in pain and then suddenly silent.

F liked the flatbread, the potatoes, the sour cream and the meatballs she ate instead very much. She demurred an opportunity to eat the fish, quite forcibly.

You know, I enjoyed the second (cheese and onion laden) helping? Years from now, I shall share a plate with whatever prime minister I've just ushered into power. Then, dressed as crayfish, we'll drink herbal shots and sing Santa Lucia round the Stång, as a wicker goat burns gently in the background. See? My cultural integration is complete.