A lighthearted and informative narrative about the history of
herring and our love affair with the silver darlings. Scots like to
smoke or salt them. The Dutch love them raw. Swedes look on with
relish as they open bulging, foul-smelling cans to find them
curdling within. Jamaicans prefer them with a dash of chilli
pepper. Germans and the English enjoy their taste best when
accompanied by pickle's bite and brine. Throughout the long
centuries men have fished around their coastlines and beyond, the
herring has done much to shape both human taste and history. Men
have co-operated and come into conflict over its shoals, setting
out in boats to catch them, straying, too, from their home ports to
bring full nets to shore. Women have also often been at the centre
of the industry, gutting and salting the catch when the annual
harvest had taken place, knitting, too, the garments fishermen wore
to protect them from the ocean's chill. Following a journey from
the western edge of Norway to the east of England, from Shetland
and the Outer Hebrides to the fishing ports of the Baltic coast of
Germany and the Netherlands, culminating in a visit to Iceland's
Herring Era Museum, Donald S. Murray has stitched together tales of
the fish that was of central importance to the lives of our
ancestors, noting how both it - and those involved in their capture
- were celebrated in the art, literature, craft, music and folklore
of life in northern Europe. Blending together politics, science,
history, religious and commercial life, Donald contemplates, too,
the possibility of restoring the silver darlings of legend to these
shores.
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