Have some schadenfreude and a wafer-thin mint!
ARE you the sort who finds other people’s misfortune amusing? Do you laugh when someone trips up, has a sneezing fit or knocks a drink over in a pub?
Join the club.
I’d like to justify my behaviour by saying that the victim’s suffering anyway, so there’s no point me doing the same. One of us might as well have a laugh, eh?
Truth is, I have a sadistic streak. And one thing sure to make me laugh – provided it’s not a symptom of something serious – is the sight of someone vomiting. I just can’t help it.
One of my favourite screen comedy characters is the ultimately-exploding barf-monster Mr Creosote in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, so it was an odd coincidence that the film was shown on TV in the week that I first learned of surströmming.
Raw Baltic herring are fermented in brine and sold in Sweden as a delicacy – or a nightmare, depending on your stomach. The fermentation continues in the tin, creating so much pressure that some airlines refuse to carry it for fear of an explosion.
A newly-opened tin of surströmming is said to produce one of the most putrid food smells in the world – as evidenced by numerous Youtube videos of people retching and vomiting the moment a can is opened.
I knew nothing of this phenomenon until I saw a notice at a local boozer, announcing that four hardy customers would attempt to eat the stuff, so I was eager to catch up with organiser Neil Wright and ask: ‘WHY?’
“It’s just in aid of a bit of fun,” said Neil, a regular at the Dewdrop Inn, in Ilkeston. He’d been chatting to a few friends in the pub one day when “someone said that so-and-so would eat anything”. But what about surströmming? he asked. They’d never heard of it, so he threw down the challenge, and bought a tin for £26.
“I work within the aviation industry and meet people from all over Scandinavia – they say they wouldn’t touch it because it’s so horrible,” Neil told me. “But I put posters up and have got four people who are going to do it.
“If anyone’s interested, we will be looking for volunteers. And,” he laughed, “no doubt they’ll make me do it as well.”
So, if you think Marmite is repulsive, get down to the Dewdrop beer garden at 3pm on Sunday, April 7, to witness a proper stomach-churning experience.
And, if you’re like me, to have a belly laugh at someone suffering.