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Six Unusual Swedish foods this Englishman doesn't get...

I like to think I've got a pretty strong stomach. Over the years, I've munched on snails, frogs' legs, a deep fried Mars Bar, a crow and even sea urchins plucked directly from the ocean by a free-diving Korean granny (long story).

But, since I married my Swedish wife and started spending lots of time in Sweden, I have come across some truly stomach-churningly odd foodstuffs that make even me think twice before tasting.

For the latest series of my Radio 4 sitcom The Cold Swedish Winter, I forced the lead actors, Edinburgh Festival award-winning comedian Adam Riches and Swedish actress Sissela Benn to try one of the most infamous Swedish 'delicacies'. It was for an episode in which Sissela's character Linda's family introduce her boyfriend Geoff (played by Adam) to Surströmming, a type of fermented rotten herring. Now, of course, I’m a firm believer in method acting, so even though this is radio, I made sure our actors had to open an actual tin of this foul-smelling stuff. Amazingly, even though Sissela is a Swede, she’d never smelt it before. It's quite something – see the very funny video below... Let's just say it's more horror movie than cooking programme...

Anyway, to celebrate what I like to think is the smelliest radio comedy programme ever made, I thought I'd concoct this list of the strangest foodstuffs I have been offered in Sweden, a country that really excels in immensely weird things to eat.

Oh, and anyone who tells me they have tried all six – you have my undying respect. I just don't ever want to go come to your house for dinner...

Danny Robins, writer of The Cold Swedish Winter and a BAFTA-winning writer, comedian and presenter.

...anyone who tells me they have tried all six – you have my undying respect. I just don’t ever want to go round your house for dinner...

1. 'Rotten' Herring

Would you eat 'rotten' fish?

The cast of The Cold Swedish Winter sample surströmming - fermented herring

Surströmming, literally "sour herring", is considered a delicacy by Swedes, particularly in the north where extreme cold and 24 hour darkness in winter might just have driven them mad enough to like it. It is herring that has been fermented for six months then crammed into a can that bulges dangerously with putrid gasses, threatening to explode. The stink, if you dare to open it, is best described as the smell of death. It has been banned from many airlines – basically placed in the same class as a terrorist weapon – and some Japanese scientists have apparently classified it as the worst food smell in the world. It's something like rotting corpses meets festering nappies... a pong so powerful that the tin should only ever be opened outdoors.

2. Salty Liquorice

Liquorice – it’s one of those 'Marmite-y' foods isn’t it? Some people like it, some people hate it, but what if you covered it with lots of salt? That would surely make even the people who liked it feel a bit ill, right? WRONG!

Tasty liquorice? Maybe a little salt will sort it out

If you are a Swede, salty liquorice is the best treat you can ever have. In Sweden, you can get salty liquorice flavour chocolate, ice cream and even vodka. The saltier the better as far as my wife is concerned; she’s been known to buy super strength salty liquorice that comes with a skull and crossbones warning on the packet.

I’ve made it very clear, to paraphrase Meatloaf, I would do anything for love but I won’t eat that.

3. Blood dumplings

Palt is a form of dumplings popular in northern Sweden, made from flour and potato. Boiled and smothered in life-threatening amounts of butter, it's proper winter farmer food, stodgy and starchy with a taste not unlike eating reinforced concrete. One dumpling will fill you up for the rest of the day, and quite possibly also give you a coronary. But what could make these stodgeballs even more deliciously nutritious? Why, reindeer blood of course, mixed in with the dough to make 'Blodpalt'. Yum.

4. Flying Jacob!

Chicken, cream, chilli sauce, bananas, Italian seasoning, roasted peanuts and bacon... Yes, that was bananas.

It may sound like the sort of expletive an old fashioned colonel might use, but 'Flying Jacob' or 'Flygande Jakob' has a collection of ingredients that, on paper, sound as unlikely to get on as an Oasis reunion tour. Take a deep breath and read this list: chicken, cream, chilli sauce, bananas, Italian seasoning, roasted peanuts and bacon. Yes, that was bananas. Swedes are not afraid to mix the fruit and savoury categories up a bit. I have also seen banana as an ingredient on a pizza (NB Swedish pizzas need a whole separate category on their own).

5. Snus

Ok, I'm cheating a bit with this one as it isn't actually a food... Snus is a moist form of tobacco, sold either loose or in small sachets that look like tiny teabags for elves. A lot of Swedes like to stuff it under their lip and suck on it for hours on end, so if you ever see someone with their top lip bulging, you can be sure they've got some snus wedged up there.

You'd think this would be the sort of thing only a grizzled old sea captain would do, but snus use is really widespread, mixed between young and old, men and women, business people and hipsters. Let’s be clear on this though, it is definitely not good for you. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s actually illegal in the European Union, but the Nordic nations have somehow managed to swing an exemption.

6. Plopp

Plopp is a chocolate bar. It’s not weird or disgusting like the rest of the foods on this list, but it does have a name that instantly delivers a schoolboy snigger in most grown ups. The Wikipedia entry tells me “some English-speaking sources have criticized the name ‘Plopp’ as being unappealing due to its ‘association with jobbies’". This is to rather miss the point though; that association is precisely the reason every time I visit Sweden I come back with a suitcase full of small Plopps to give as gifts. You know what they say, once you Plopp, you can’t stop...

Well, bon appétit, or as they say in Sweden “Smaklig maltid”! Just don’t open that can of herring indoors...

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