Herring – Or ‘Śledź’: And a Recipe to Perfectly Create This Traditional Staple | Article

Herring – Or ‘Śledź’: And a Recipe to Perfectly Create This Traditional Staple

sledz_17.jpg, default, Herring, photo: Monika Zbojeńska/IAM

A break in the midst of partying and fun or a rather unpleasant culinary necessity for the long periods of fasting imposed by Catholic religious observance. Today in Poland, herring seems to be a gastronomic oxymoron as far as cultural associations, and yet, it has remained a staple food in a country in which fish is generally rarely consumed. Let’s take a look at its complicated culinary history.

Thumbnail — Herring in vinegar, photo: iStockphoto/Getty Images

For centuries, the consumption of saltwater fish was rather limited in central and southern Poland due to challenges of transportation and storage. Out of necessity, our ancestors mastered the art of cooking dried cod or skate from the Baltic Sea. Alternatively, saltwater fish such as herring was matured in barrels with a lower solution of brine. Rock-hard and salted fish required a great deal of preparation, such as soaking, rinsing and tenderising.

As far as cooking is concerned, there are some old Polish recipes involving cod with spices such as mace flower or allspice, but now they are considered rather curious and obscure accounts of the lost culinary culture of the past. Even the recipes for stockfish, once a vital source of protein in wintertime, are almost completely forgotten. The Baltic skate? Now, it is hard to find in its natural marine habitat.

That said, there is one culinary tradition whose memory seems to still be vivid in the cuisines of both private homes and restaurants. In Poland, we have had a thing for herring almost since the beginning of our statehood and it has inspired us not only in the field of culinary creativity.

According to the anonymous author of the oldest Polish chronicle entitled the Acts of the Polish Princes [Lat.: Gesta principum Polonorum, written in the beginning of the 12th century], the abominable taste of salted fish stoked the battle enthusiasm of the Polish knights during Prince Bolesław Wrymouth’s (1086-1138) military expeditions to Pomerania. In 1103, after one of the Pomeranian campaigns, a song was written about the courage of the Polish troops:

Our ancestors were satisfied with salty and fetid fish / We come for fresh fish, splashing in the sea! / It was enough for our fathers if they captured forts, / And we are not deterred by the storm, by the sound of the threatening wave. / Our fathers hunted deer, / And we hunt for treasures and monsters, hiding in the ocean!

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Herring in cream, photo: iStockphoto/Getty Images

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For centuries, salted or smoked herring was relatively cheap and largely affordable, hence it became an iconic food item for Catholic fast days. Additionally, some recipes advised adding smoked or dried fish to fermented rye soup or even serving meat with herring sauce. Then, at Polish aristocratic banquets of old, a new culinary trend was launched: cold herring was served as an appetiser prior to the main courses in order to whet the appetite. In the 18th century, one of the most popular ways of preparing herring as an appetiser consisted of soaking it properly, peeling off the skin, cutting the fish into pieces and serving it cold with onions or apples, seasoned with black pepper, vinegar, and olive oil. Does this sound familiar? Well, visit your nearest Polish deli or vodka bar and you will find this centuries-old recipe as a zakąska (appetiser).

Nowadays, a new tradition has been invented: informal holiday parties among friends called śledziki (little herrings) are held in some parts of Poland before Christmas. (There is, incidentally, another party called śledzik [little herring] and it falls on Mardi Gras!) What’s more, in the countryside, there was once a tradition of so-called ‘herring hanging’ right before Easter. The fish used to be nailed to trees as a punishment for replacing meat. According to some ethnographic sources, the herring was hung out to dry even for as long as six weeks and the ceremony was accompanied by a joyful preview of festive feasts prepared for the holidays.

Today, you will find that in Poland herring is served boiled, baked, fried or marinated, and there are recipes for sauces based on cream, yoghurt, tomatoes, gherkins or plums and raisins, among others. Truth be told, it seems as if there are no limits to our creativity in regard to herring appetizers: you can even find fish with ‘Japanese-style’ dressing, i.e. boiled eggs and mayonnaise. It was extremely popular as an accompaniment to vodka in the times of the People’s Republic of Poland – but does it actually have any connection to the Far East? There is an astonishing hypothesis that the dish was named by Poles from Galicia to honour the Japanese whom they supported in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904.

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The last day of the carnival, i.e. the 'Śledzik' carnival, Radziłów, Podlaskie Voivodeship, photo: Michal Kosc / Forum

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Then there is ‘Kashubian herring’: in that case, the name of the dish is a bit more of a straightforward geographical reference to the coastal region of Kashubia in northwestern Poland. That fish is served in tomato sauce with gherkins and onions and such sweet and sour concoctions as fruit and raisins – so popular with our northern neighbours – are rather rare, but they do exist. Last but not least, in Poland, you can even get ‘Hawaiian herring’ with pineapple – a spin-off of the notorious Hawaiian pizza (which, by the way, has no real connection to Hawaii either). Getting dizzy from chasing all these types of Polish herring around the world? Luckily, there is always the good old herring in linseed oil with grated onions, a classic that will never age.