[Leica] Matjes & acquavit

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

Hello Seth,
sounds like your having withdrawal symptoms, here's a description of 
your addiction.BTW,your spelling is correct
Gaffelbitter is a Norse or Low German word describing marinated pieces 
(bitter = bites or bits) of Herring in a (nowadays) dill and white wine 
sauce, or wine, sugar and mild mustard. It's still a speciality in the 
Netherlands and Scandinavia (Norwegian = Gaffelbiter). The word gaffel 
means fork (High German =  Gabel), so these were fork sized bits of herring.
If I remember correctly, a Swedish company called ABBA also sells it in 
tins (rumour has it that this company is where four musical Swedes 
invested some of their millions to get them past the taxman)
Douglas

Seth Rosner wrote:

>  In preparation for some client work this am, I browsed the archive 
> and saw the exchanges on matjes. Immediately the insides of my mouth 
> began to stream.
>
> When I was a kid, very occasionally my dad would come home from a trip 
> to somewhere with a wooden bucket filled with something he called 
> gaffelbitter (sp.?) = sliced bits of matjes herring. Last year, for 
> some reason I thought of - and in my imagination tasted - matjes 
> herring and googled it. Found a company in Washington State that sold 
> it and ordered - I think it was a 1,5 kg container of the wonderful 
> stuff. Which I rationed to myself through several months.
>
>