Baltic Herring Festival

After living in Helsinki for over a year, I think I have had time to attend the festivals that appeal to me. And I think that my personal favorite is the Baltic Herring Festival, held each year in early October since 1743. It takes place at the South Harbor in the Market Square where most of the cruise ships dock and one of the outdoor markets is located.

For one week, fishing boats dock in the harbor and the fishermen sell their goods from their boats. The most common things to buy are of course, herring (pickled with anything that you can imagine), salmon (raw, smoked, cold-smoked), rainbow trout, and loads more.

We went last year at the urging of my coworkers. It was toward the end of the opening hours and we didn't really know what we were doing. We both grew up in land-locked Iowa where we didn't eat a ton of fish, and had very little idea or practical experience of what to do with the raw materials.

At this point last year, we had only been in Finland for about 6 weeks. Knowing very little (more like none at all) Finnish, we were a bit nervous to go. Lucky for us, the signs came in multiple languages and the fishermen knew enough English to help us out. One was even trying to get rid of his goods for the day and cleverly talked us into a jar of pickled herring that 'smelled like summer' when opened.

This year, it was marked on our calendar so that we did not miss it!

Fish is not the only thing you will find at the Herring Festival. There are also people selling Åland Island style bread, called svartbröd, or blackbread. Nearly black, this bread is dense and sweet, made with sour milk, rye and graham flours, malt and molasses, it is the perfect edible shovel for the fish that you buy.

Svartbröd

Delicious chunk of cold smoked salmon

My favorite Finnish food has been cold smoked salmon. Unfortunately, it is on the blacklist of pregnancy foods since it is not cooked. All of my salmon this year went into scrambled eggs, which is not a terrible way to eat cold smoked salmon. 

My salmon in eggs, atop a slice of the edible shovel

There are also these temporary shacks set up from which people are selling all kinds of things. But what they are all selling are sauces and juice made from sea buckthorn berries.

Stall, selling mostly sea buckthorn berry products (the orange stuff)

I had never heard of sea buckthorn berries until I got here, but they are touted for their health benefits, namely a high vitamin C content. Apparently the berries taste terrible on their own, thus it is more common to see them sold as a processed product. If you really want to acquire the berries in their raw form, you can find them at the outdoor markets this time of year, or perhaps go foraging on your own to find them under the everyman's right provision.

Like last year, we had to find a balance between eating too much fish and making the fish last as long as possible. This lasted approximately 2 days, and if you listen to the recommendations for amount of fish to eat during pregnancy, I was nearing over my limit for the week. We can find all of these kinds of fish in Helsinki year-round, but the taste just does not compare to that of the fish from the Herring Festival. Until next year...