Globecord - Herring on the Side of Caution

I cautiously ate some fried herring for supper on Friday. They were fried by a German. I'm not German and I don't know any Germans or German restaurants.

Fried Herring (C$2.97), from Richter und Greif

This oblong and unusually large can of fish caught my eye as I ambled through my grocer's canned-fish section, as it has no doubt caught yours where you shop--I had not seen its like before. On picking it up, I noticed two things: its contents made an agreeable sloshing sound, and it came from the state-of-the-art fish processing plant in Cuxhaven, Germany operated by the above-noted company.

Previously, the only R&G products available in this area were herring fillets, served in a variety of different-coloured yet identical-tasting sauces (and this can claimed to contain a "spicy marinade"--I had my doubts). Fillets in sauce are good because they require no preparation at all; they're eaten immediately upon opening the can with the attached pull-tab. If you keep them in a desk drawer, there's no need at all for a trip to the kitchen. I was expecting more fillets here, but instead the can held four whole herrings, with just the innards and heads removed. They were brown from the frying, and upon seeing them my first thought was of the "caramel cod" that appeared in a Simpsons Hallowe'en episode some years back.

They were tasty. Excellent consistency--no mushiness. The surprisingly distinctive sauce was spicy, too--very nicely so. All good value for $2.97, as I ate them over a couple of days. If you own any clothes stitched in a herringbone pattern, the layout of the little bones in these fish will be pleasingly familiar to you, but they aren't the sort that lodge in your throat--no need to take them out.

A quality new product, this. If putting together some doomsday supplies, toss in a few cans for variety. These are very well-prepared herring, though still of no use if one needs to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest.