Durian is the one thing that andrew zimmern absolutely loathes.
Why ? I believe our community is strong enough to admit realities. I believe in my surefire flashlight as well as in my Leatherman multitool even if there are Gerbers and Swissplayers around. I guess even our military experts know the difference between Glock and single action peacemaker. I hope you don’t grill me on this 
He probably just hasn’t acquired the taste yet. Give him some more time in S.E.Asia and he gets to appreciate the heavenly taste of DURIAN!!!
Gravlax is it ! It’s perfectly good salmon allowed to spoil with salt and dill. The stuff was probably great before the days of refrigeration, but since that time we developed societies have found better ways to preserve fish.
Durian? I really wanted to like that stuff but could not get past the smell. I consider the first person to eat it to have been one of the most pitiful starving humans to have ever lived. A friend of mine went home to Thailand after the tidal wave devastated the place. He sent me an email and said the devastation was unbelievable, dead bodies still being recovered and entire villages smell like durian.
It’s looking better every day.
That’s some girls that I could hang with. If you know what I mean.
you mean they smell like Durian?
Nothing wrong with Gravlax. It is dry cured salmon. With the same process they make for instance dry cured ham. Grav means hole in the ground like in graveyard. Lax is salmon. In the old days without refrigeration they buried the salted salmon in the sand to ripen, hence Gravlax.
I once ate Surstrømming, which is fermented herring, at the house of my Swedish girlfriend’s parents. I was instructed by her that it would please her dad very much if I ate it. He opened the tins in a bucket with water. That made me wonder a bit. The pregnant smell was immediately noticeable. After cleaning it was served cut in small pieces on the traditional buttered flatbread called tunnbröd. It had a very strong peculiar fishy taste but I could stomach it probably because we have our own raw herring. Her dad to my surprise embraced me and said that I was a real Swede now. His enthusiasm had also to do with the bottle of whiskey which I brought him as a present. More than half the bottle was already gone by then…
Our Dutch favourite is raw herring. In a couple of weeks the herring fleet will bring in the first catches. The day they arrive in the harbour is a national spectacle called Flags Day. Girls in traditional clothing serve the first new herring to the public. Some dip it in finely diced onions but that is not the real thing. Grab it by the tail and down the hatch…
The only Scandinavian specialty that does not appeal to my taste buds is Lutefisk, that is cod soaked in water and potash lye.
Nice story!!
Two corrections though;
Gravlax is not dried and not dugged down in a hole in the ground. It is just fresh salmon marinated and cured with salt and sugar, infused with Dill and/or some other herbs: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/04/how-to-make-gravlax-cured-salmon.html
The “Rakørret/Rakfisk” I mentioned is what used to be dugged down in barrels and fermented as a means of preservation: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20543802
Lutefisk is traditionally made from air dried Cod or Ling, which has been hung in the cold dry air of Lofoten until it is near bone dry. This is called “Stockfish” and is one of the oldest commodities traded from Norway. Learn all about it here: http://nordnorge.com/EN-lofoten/?News=436
To get it to swell up to it’s near normal size and consistency, it is put into water with lye added and becomes Lutefisk, which is a popular dish in Norway during X-mas.
It is also popular among Americans of Norwegian decent. Two towns in Minnesota calls itself the “Lutefisk Capital, USA”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8GVmTrQuvc
To some folks in USA there is no X-mas without Lutefisk and Lefse.
Actually, today, Lutefisk in Norway is mostly made from “Klippfisk”, which is salted and semi-dried cod, In Minnesota they probably make theirs from Alaskan Pollock.
PS> I have just learnt that another traditional preserved fish is making a comeback as delicacy. That is “Boknafisk”, which is only partly dried cod taken down from the drying rakes early in the season. It is now spreading to other parts of Norway as “nostalgia food”, although it was traditionally eaten mainly locally in the North and West of Norway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boknafisk
Ling as in lingcod? what a way to ruin such a mild and palatable fish…
oh the humanity!
You can’t help yourself can you?
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Help myself to what??
Funny…
You don’t get it do you?
it is common for his personality type to be almost totally obtuse
I am afraid one smart cookie less…
Eh. Put him on ignore if that feature exists in the new forum.
At a time when the forum was rather quiet, almost dead, Ombugge did more than his share of the heavy lifting to help keep it alive. Like some other frequent posters, he is often very knowledgeable, informative and insightful. I enjoy hearing other informed points of view about what is going on in other places in the world. But sometimes he is a bit hard to take and best ignored. Does this sound like anyone else that we know?
Ombugge, keep up the good work. Most of us know how to filter out the Norwegian chest-pounding and BS from the interesting and informed comments.
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The filters need changing and the oil needs to be changed. I’m thinking we should just pickle it and lay it up for a while.
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Oh [quote=“Dutchie, post:79, topic:44935, full:true”]
Funny… You don’t get it do you?
[/quote]
Oh but I do GET IT., but I don’t believe in explaining a joke.
Maybe I should have completed the sentence to make it easier to understand, but here goes;
Help myself to what, Gravlax, Lutefisk or Surstromming???
Now, can I please go on “insulting” the tender egos on here??