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Herring Tales: How the silver darlings shaped human taste and history
Scots like to smoke or salt them. The Dutch love them raw. Swedes look on with relish as they open bulging, foul-smelling cans to find them curdling within. Jamaicans prefer them with a dash of chili pepper. Germans and the English enjoy their taste best when accompanied by pickle's bite and brine.
The herring has done much to shape both human taste and history. Men cooperated and came into conflict over its shoals, setting out on boats to catch them and straying to bring full nets to shore. Women gutted and salted the catch during the annual harvest and knitted the garments fishermen wore to protect them from the ocean's chill.
Following a journey from the western edge of Norway to the east of England, from Shetland and the Outer Hebrides to the fishing ports of the Baltic coast of Germany and the Netherlands, Donald S. Murray has stitched together tales of the fish that was of central importance to the lives of many Europeans, noting how both it--and those involved in its capture--were celebrated in the art, literature, craft, music, and folklore of northern Europe.
Blending together politics, science, history, religion, and commercial life, Murray contemplates, too, the possibility of restoring the silver darlings of legend to their long-ago shores.
The herring has done much to shape both human taste and history. Men cooperated and came into conflict over its shoals, setting out on boats to catch them and straying to bring full nets to shore. Women gutted and salted the catch during the annual harvest and knitted the garments fishermen wore to protect them from the ocean's chill.
Following a journey from the western edge of Norway to the east of England, from Shetland and the Outer Hebrides to the fishing ports of the Baltic coast of Germany and the Netherlands, Donald S. Murray has stitched together tales of the fish that was of central importance to the lives of many Europeans, noting how both it--and those involved in its capture--were celebrated in the art, literature, craft, music, and folklore of northern Europe.
Blending together politics, science, history, religion, and commercial life, Murray contemplates, too, the possibility of restoring the silver darlings of legend to their long-ago shores.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2015
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About the author
Donald S. Murray
31 books23 followersDonald S. Murray was born in Ness in the Isle of Lewis and taught on Benbecula. An author and journalist, his poetry, prose and verse has been shortlisted for both the Saltire Award and Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. Published widely, his work has also appeared in a number of national anthologies and on BBC Radio 4 and Radio Scotland. He lives and works in Shetland.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 10, 2020
One might say that author Donald S. Murray has found a niche in the commodities market here. There are all sorts of books about raw resources and their impact on history, and you can read about everything from coal and uranium through to salt and spices and even products like bananas and beans. Personally though I hadn't previously seen a book about the herring. I have read a few of the books in this genre and they are of variable quality. Mr Murray's offering on the herring is quite idiosyncratic but (perhaps for that very reason) I found it to be one of the most interesting and entertaining books within the category.
In a genre where every other publication seems to claim that the product under discussion "changed the world", this book does not make exaggerated claims. Nor does the author try to offer a detailed academic analysis of the history of the trade. He rarely quotes facts and figures. This is not because the book has been poorly researched. The author travelled extensively in Northern Europe to gather first hand testimony, and it is clear he is also extremely well read - no chapter passes without reference to historical accounts or to the literature of the culture he is discussing. In terms of economics, he makes it clear that there are many communities in Northern Europe that only exist because of the herring. His main aim though, is to highlight the cultural impact of the herring and its industry, which created connections stretching from Iceland through the British Isles to Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Baltic, Northern Russia and even further afield. One particularly interesting aspect focused on the "herring girls". Once a major feature of life in rural Scotland, these women migrated around the coast of Britain following the herring fleet, which itself followed the migrating shoals, and found work gutting and stacking the fish. Pay, conditions of work and living conditions were all abominable, but at the same time the women were exposed to wider horizons, which left them no longer satisfied with accepting their lot in their home communities.
There's enough in the book to keep a gastronome interested, since the author describes how each culture varied how the herring was preserved, prepared and served, and the author also considers the impact of the herring on art, literature, song and mythology. In fairness the subject matter is probably of interest mainly to those who know the coastal communities of Northern Europe, but I for one thoroughly enjoyed this.
In a genre where every other publication seems to claim that the product under discussion "changed the world", this book does not make exaggerated claims. Nor does the author try to offer a detailed academic analysis of the history of the trade. He rarely quotes facts and figures. This is not because the book has been poorly researched. The author travelled extensively in Northern Europe to gather first hand testimony, and it is clear he is also extremely well read - no chapter passes without reference to historical accounts or to the literature of the culture he is discussing. In terms of economics, he makes it clear that there are many communities in Northern Europe that only exist because of the herring. His main aim though, is to highlight the cultural impact of the herring and its industry, which created connections stretching from Iceland through the British Isles to Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Baltic, Northern Russia and even further afield. One particularly interesting aspect focused on the "herring girls". Once a major feature of life in rural Scotland, these women migrated around the coast of Britain following the herring fleet, which itself followed the migrating shoals, and found work gutting and stacking the fish. Pay, conditions of work and living conditions were all abominable, but at the same time the women were exposed to wider horizons, which left them no longer satisfied with accepting their lot in their home communities.
There's enough in the book to keep a gastronome interested, since the author describes how each culture varied how the herring was preserved, prepared and served, and the author also considers the impact of the herring on art, literature, song and mythology. In fairness the subject matter is probably of interest mainly to those who know the coastal communities of Northern Europe, but I for one thoroughly enjoyed this.
July 27, 2016
Herring Tales is a book for the autodidact, a loose collection of tales full of facts, information and everything and anything you may ever have wanted to know about the silver darlings. I could have wished for a bit more of a story, a bit more narrative and order. I expected a little more of a complete history of herrings and this wasn't the book for that. In the end the book does what it says it will do because it is, in the end, a collection of herring tales.
November 10, 2024
A true submersion into all things related to the small, but delicious herring! Murray takes the reader from the craggy coast of western Scotland to Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and Iceland to celebrate and educate on a fish and an industry that fed and continues to feed the world! I learned so much and will appreciate every bite whenever I open a can of kippers!
September 26, 2018
A veritable smorgasbord of herring tales, dishes and culture.
April 23, 2025
rambling and lacking in focus. I love books about commodities, but this one just missed the mark for me.
February 26, 2017
Delightful, ostensibly about herrings but really about social life, history, folklore &c. around Northern Europe in all the places where herring has been important. Learned a lot!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews