How I Earned My Viking Horns

I'm not generally a finicky eater--I have gobbled down sushi, calimari, hummus and tzatziki, edamame and miso, guacamole and chili rellenos--really, other than not eating red meat and poultry, the only food I despise are bananas. Disgusting, mushy, stinky things! So I came to Norway with an open mind, eager to try new foods. The first new food I tried was cloudberry sauce over ice cream. Cloudberries look like yellow raspberries and they're really sour, but really good mixed with sugar and served with ice cream. Some of our friends here love to drink black current juice--it comes in a can as concentrate, and can be mixed with either cold or hot water, depending on the weather outside. I think it's better cold, but it's okay either way. I've even been brave enough to eat wild mushrooms (mushroom hunting is huge here in Norway--kind of risky business, as there are several varieties of poisonous mushrooms in the forest!) The wild mushrooms were so good, served on toast with goat cheese. I've devoured several slices of eplekake (apple cake) and oh so many waffles.
I think some of our friends here in Norway saw the gusto with which I polished off all of these new foods, and they decided it was time to raise the bar. So they got out the rakfisk. Oh my! Rakfisk is trout which has been fermented in brine and sugar for 2 or 3 months. Rakfisk has been eaten in Norway since at least the 1300's, and it is considered a wonderful delicacy here, a treat eaten especially at Christmas time. Families carefully protect their ancient, secret rakfisk recipes, and there is even an annual rakfisk festival and competition. My friends assured me that if I took a bite (and swallowed), I would earn my honorary "Viking horns". Ah, peer pressure! I think they could sense I was waffling, so they quickly opened the package. The odor that assailed me was horrific--how can I describe it? Oh, I know, in college I had several friends who were medical students. During the semester that they were in anatomy lab, cutting up cadavers, the smell of formaldehyde permeated their clothes and hair, and no amount of showering seemed to completely erase the odor. That's what rakfisk smells like! Yummy!!! But I couldn't think of a polite way to tell my hosts that the delicacy that they were enthusiastically preparing smelled a little too much like cadavers for my taste, so like an idiot, I just sat there smiling. After months of hanging out in brine, rakfisk no longer retains the physical properties of fish--it's mushy and can be spread like butter. It is generally spread onto a piece of lefsa, slathered in sour cream and onions, and then rolled up like a stinking, festering burrito. I think the large quantities of Aquavit (a 45% alcohol caraway flavored liquor) generally consumed with rakfisk probably make it more palatable. Sadly, I only had a cup of tea, so no numbed tastebuds for me! But I'm proud to say, I did it! I took one teeny, tiny nibble and somehow managed to swallow it, and then I drank my whole cup of tea to get the taste out of my mouth. I still shudder when I think of it...and I'm still waiting for my damn Viking horns!