...And boy did it make me queasy. This week, the weird food season officially kicked off, at least for my part. This lovely-looking fishy treat was served when I attended the annual meeting of the National Journalist Union's (NJ's) art association mid-week. It was only the second time in my life I ventured to eat this traditional dish (the first time was at last year's NJ art association meeting), but it's actually quite nice, believe it or not. If you're not familiar with rakfisk, it's fermented rainbow trout usually served with potatoes, lefse, onion, mustard and sour cream (as well as beer and aquavit).
As it happened I found myself quite unable to eat the next day, but was later reliably informed by the resident alpine coach and health expert that was for being silly enough to try Albanian whisky, which apparently everybody but me knows, or knew rather, is not filtered - and hence dangerous stuff. That made for a weird new experience: head was great the day after, but I was SO nauseous and traditional remedies, such as paracetamol, did nothing to alleviate it - just had to wait for it to get out of my body.
Anyway, as I was walking around in the belief that the fish was to blame for this uncomfortable state of affairs - after all, some folks call rakfisk "rotten fish", it certainly smells like that, the funniest description I've seen of it so far is "dead trout put in a bucket to rot" - I thought to myself that I had a very trying season in front of me, seeing that, in Norway, the time before Christmas is filled with corporate and family get togethers with Norwegian "delicacies" such as Rakfisk, Lutefisk (cod prepared with lye/caustic soda) and Smalahove....
OK, you've got me curious - have you ever had a "weird" food experience that was good?
Posted by: ashok | November 12, 2008 at 10:12 AM
I had to think long and hard about this one, but yes: I was served whole fish in a village close to Athens once and it was lovely. Tiny ones for starter, a whole fish, it looked intact but only fish meat and bones under the skin, for main course. And it was actually very nice, and I'd like to think that wasn't only because of the liberal amounts of wine that was served with it.
Lutefisk is also eatable, much to my surprise, though I'd skip the bacon cause I don't like pork, and I'd never order it of my own free will.
Some of the meat on Smalahove (sheeps head) is also nice if it wasn't for the way it's presented - which really makes my stomach curl
Posted by: Kristine | November 16, 2008 at 11:27 PM