Abendbrot — the cold evening meal, on rye bread
Pickled Herring in Vinegar and Onion (Hering in Essig)
PreservingReconstruction🍋 🧂 🫙facile30 min + 3 days marinating
Herring fillets marinated for several days in vinegar with onion, bay leaf and juniper berries. Sour, salty, long-lasting — the proletarian fish par excellence.
Abendbrot — the cold evening meal, on rye bread
Herring fillets marinated for several days in vinegar with onion, bay leaf and juniper berries. Sour, salty, long-lasting — the proletarian fish par excellence.
The herring, my friend, is the fish of the proletarian: it keeps, it travels, it nourishes without ruining you. In London, in the fog, we always kept a jar in vinegar for the lean days — and God knows they were many. One of its recipes was named after that Junker Bismarck; for my part I would have preferred any other godfather, but vinegar, it ignores politics. Let it marinate three days, and it will keep you company for a whole week of lean cows.
Ingredients
- •Fresh herrings — half a dozen (base fish)
- •Vinegar — enough to cover (marinade, preservation)
- •Onions — two (flavor, texture)
- •Juniper berries and peppercorns — a pinch (pickling spices)
- •Bay leaves — two or three (flavor)
- •Salt and a little sugar — to hand (balance, salting)
How it was made : Before refrigeration, salted or pickled herring was one of the main sources of cheap protein in Northern Europe. Vinegar marinade extended preservation for several days or even weeks. The famous *Bismarckhering* was popularized in Germany in the 1870s; families made herring in vinegar at home long before, as a subsistence reserve.
Sources : Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx (Volume I), 1972 · Gerda Möhler, Deutsche Küchengeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (historical synthesis of German popular cuisine)