Paige Simard’s Reviews > Salt: A World History > Status Update

“The only remaining problem is how to get the smell out of the house.” I’m fucking cryingggg

OP they’re talking about surströmming—pickled herring—which is from Sweden and Finland. These fish are fermented in barrels for TEN TO TWELVE WEEKS MY GUY

Herring are actually quite cool, especially the concept of herring lightning! “…which occurred because the shoals were so dense that they reflected light.”
“…when these fish are moving rapidly and the huge shoal turns back on itself, they resemble flashes of lightning in the churning water.”

AH the colonizers doing what they do best, stealing. “At the time of Beuckelzon’s invention, herring already had been barreled in brine by the Scandinavians, the French, the Flemish, and the English for centuries.”

Wow herring is so much different than cod: it needs to be salted twenty four hours after being lifted from the sea. This rule was so hard-stop that “…the count of Holland threatened to prosecute any fishermen who cured a herring that had been out of the water for more than twenty-four hours.”

“In the Middle Ages, adultery was thought to be a major cause of the herring leaving.” HAHAHA all the while, the herring leave bc it ate all the zooplankton in the water nearby. WIILDDD

“Herring was such a dominant fish in the medieval market that in twelfth century Paris saltwater fish dealers were called harengerés, herring sellers.” Woooow

What a way to end the chapter: “salt cod by the bail, along with salted herring by the barrel, are justly credited with having prevented famine in many parts of Europe.”

“…salt cod and corned beef became the rations of the British navy.” Wooooow but that makes sense bc they need something hearty but non-perishable

Wow the seventeenth-century English gave corned beef its name, corns being any small bits—in this case salt crystals!! No frickin way!!