Big Eyed Fish

"Look at this big - eyed fish
swimming in the sea oh.
How it dreams to be a bird
swoop and diving through the breeze."
- Dave Matthews Band



"For the last 200 years fishing vessels from all along Finland's southern coast have crowded the market docks the first week of October to sell pickled sea delicacies straight from their prows. Coming during the drab days between the end of summer and the first snowfall, when Finland dips slowly into arctic darkness and the drizzle can seem endless, Helsinki's annual Baltic Herring Market is one of those indigenous events that perfectly satisfies a foreigner's yearnings for the atmospheric. The sea is dark and deep, the fishermen's faces cragged but honest, and some even wear heavy navy turtlenecks and stocking caps. The wooden boats are homemade. Even the weather is usually obliging: either a gauzy wind-swept veil of rain or the clear sideway light peculiar to the Baltic coast in autumn...


The most straightforward recipe is suolassilakka, or salted herring, where a slippery handful of the fish is packed whole and upright in brine. From there, most families venture on to more complicated concoctions, in which the silakka is beheaded, boned (though you can eat it with the bones), sliced and set floating in a special sauce. Among the varieties commonly found at the market are sinappisilakka (herring in a creamy mustard sauce), tillisilakka (herring in a dill sauce), tomattisilakka (herring in a tomato sauce), kermavlisilakka (herring in a rich yogurt-like sauce), valkosipulisilakka (herring in a garlic sauce) and punavnisilakka (herring in red wine)...


Along with the herring nearly every boat offers deep brown round loaves of musta leipa (black bread). Originally made with oats and cow blood, musta leipa is now made from graham flour, curds, malt and sugar, but it still has a suspiciously sweet and earthy taste."
- American Scandinavian Foundation Autumn 1996


What a perfect time for the boys and I to try something new while everyone back at home is listening to Big Tex while they munch on their annual Fletcher's corn dog, turkey leg, and all the new concoctions before heading to the Auto Show to view all the upcoming cars. Not to disappoint you or any Finns but we opted to skip on the herring (not a fan of eating fish with the skin still on) and only sampled the musta leipa (a little sweet for me). The scenery was amazing with all the boats crammed into the harbor and locals ambling around deciding what to take home for the evening.