Pickled Herring

I've just recently acquired a taste for Pickled Herring. I had never had it before about a month ago. I picked up two tins of it the last time I was at Ikea thinking that since I like other canned seafood (like sardines and smoked oysters) I might possibly like this stuff too. My first taste was pretty much what you would expect. It was weird. It was sweeter than I had expected and also very salty. I wasn't sure I liked it but I promptly finished the tin. Then a few weeks later I had a big craving for it again. I opened up the second tin and enjoyed every last bit of it. This time I had also included a glass of vodka and combination of the strong sweet/salty fish with the strong but clean tasting vodka was really very good. Now, I've also acquired a taste for vodka which I didn't have before, of course only when it's drunk with pickled herring.

So, yesterday I trekked over to Olsen's Scandinavian Foods in Ballard and bought two more tins of Abba Matjes Herring and a large can of some other brand that was cheaper. Mmmmm, pickled herring.