Many different herrings

Many different herrings, originally uploaded by Adventures of Pam & Frank.

In the words of Ulla Inga Hansen-Bensen-Yanson-Tallen-Hallen-Svaden-Swanson Bloom

We stopped for lunch (and only a teeny little bit of shopping, honest!) Along with the usual meatballs, I took one of each herrings and pickles from the Seattle Ikea's Smörgåsbord. I grew up eating herring and love it.

Trying these were as much fun as digging into a Kimchi assortment at a Korean restaurant. Ok, I think that's fun, anyway. If you're into trying weird foods, you'd probably enjoy it as well.

So what were these different fishy variations?
Clockwise from the top:

Herring in cream sauce with white roe. Similar to Kalles Kaviar, only not as sweet as the Kalles roe. Nice bubbly texture from the caviar, but very similar to the herring in cream sauce sold at the grocery store.

Fresh pickles. Cukes, vinegar, and sugar. A perfect balance of sweet and sour.

The pink blob at 5 o'clock, I thought, was some sort of beet. It was a chunk of chilled boiled potato in what must have been beet and potato salad. Had I known, I would have taken a lot more. It was delicious.

The yellow blob at about 7 o'clock is salmon pate with dill and mustard. Wonderful on rye crisp.

Next is smoked salmon, which I'm normally not too fond of. This wasn't as salty or fishy as most smoked salmon tends to be, and the texture was dry and tender. Nice.

Then we have two pieces of herring in dill and mustard sauce. This was the best. I should have taken more. (The red blob is a drip from the next herring.)

In the center is herring in tomato sauce. The tomato sauce was thick and sweet, almost like a tomato preserve. Not all that big on tomato sauces, I wasn't sure how I'd like tomato with fish. It was surprisingly good and I wish I'd taken more of that one, too.

The buttery cube next to the tomato sauced herring is buttery Jarlsburg cheese. It was perfect on the rye crisp I'd gotten to go with the herring.

Like our trip to Bend, Oregon two months ago, I really wished Frank had come with us. He would have loved the all the many different herrings.