A Minnesota Christmas: Pickled Herring

Growing up in Minnesota in the 1950’s and 60’s, I had very little access to seafood. Being Catholics, we had fish sticks every Friday. They were not a pleasant treat. I’m not even sure they were actually fish of any kind. Mostly breading and salt. Of course canned tuna was endemic, but as a young boy I regarded it as an inedible affront that mothers felt compelled to force on their young for the pure sadistic pleasure of it.

Only at Christmas was the tang of the ocean carried into our home. That is when my dad inevitably brought home a one gallon bucket of Elf pickled herring.

It was a red plastic bucket, I remember, that lurked in the back of the refrigerator from around December 20th through January 5th. It was the exclusive domain of dad and his brothers, who came over nearly every day to eat it with Ry-Krisp crackers and squat brown bottles of Hamms Beer.

Cracking open the lid of pickled herring not only unleashed a rich and tangy odor throughout the house, but also unleashed a continuous and irritable murmur from my mother -- somewhat akin to the endless murmur of waves crashing upon the Baltic shore. She found everything about pickled herring, and those who relished it, to be repugnant. It smelled up the house; it gave one tremendously evil bad breath; and once dropped upon the carpet, it left a greasey stain that even Mr. Clean could not fully eradicate. To her, it was a yuletide curse.

As an inquisitive and intrusive little boy, I was naturally curious about what all the fuss was for. So I asked Uncle Jim for a taste one Saturday afternoon. He was well on his way to finishing up his fifth or six bottle of Hamms, and was only too happy to oblige his nephew. I gave the proffered hunk of pickled herring a few perfunctory chews and then swallowed it. The taste was very . . . well, after all these years I really don’t remember the taste so much as the subsequent reaction -- all over the living room carpet. Such a household felony usually meant the firing squad, but mom took pity on my outraged digestive system and merely sent me to bed without any supper -- a moot point anyways, since the thought of food for the next twelve hours sent my gorge to Himalayan heights.

Over half a century later, with mom and dad and the beer swilling uncles sleeping quietly in their plots at Sunset Memorial Park, I am spending the Christmas season with some of my own kids and grand kids, benignly overseeing the decoration of spritz cookies and the mixing of non-alcoholic eggnog (the kids found an internet site that claims nutmeg is the best thing in the world to prevent catching a cold.) And when no one is looking, I furtively go to the fridge to pull out an 8 ounce jar of Elf herring in wine sauce for a quick nibble. Like my father before me, I eventually discovered it is the perfect Nordic comfort food for the holidays. It no longer reminds me of the tang of the ocean -- I’ve lived on the beach in Thailand -- but the tang of vinegar, after too many heavily decorated spritz cookies, is a welcome change of taste.