Herring plate!

Herring - Or what Swedes have for Christmas dinner. The first part of the "Julbord" consists of fish. In this picture you will find that we have boiled eggs cut in half and garnished with Kalles kaviar (red cod roe caviar). On the top of the plate is Tara's homemade bread with butter and in the middle Tara's homemade Janssons frestelse (a kind of potato gratin/casserole with anchovies). The rest of the plate is packed with different versions of pickled herring: "Brantevik herring" (a rather sweet pickled herring), Dill herring (as the name suggests, flavored in a dill brine, and Onion herring (the most traditional form of pickled herring). Yum yum! Served with a glass of cold Porter and snaps (for more about the all-important Nordic snaps ritual - read this). For Christmas we prefer a very bitter dram called Gammel Dansk.

Some famous Swedish snaps labels.