oh, so allspice is pimento is kryddpeppar! hmm, foods eaten only by grandparents! odd,,, extremely old fashioned swedish food sounds kinda yummy~!
OK, here's an example:
Pickled herring2 whole herrings (or 4 fillets)
1 - 2 red onions
2 dl water (1 cup, or actually 0.8 cups, but let's not be picky)
1 dl white distilled vinegar (1/2 cup)
1,5 dl sugar (3/4 cup)
10 whole grains of allspice
5 whole grains of white pepper
1 bay leaf
glass jar with room for at least a pint (judging from the measures above)
If the herring is salted, it needs to be soaked in water, 10 - 12 hours for fillets, 24 hours for whole fish. Savour the feeling of living in the 19th century while you're waiting. Then cut the herring in half-inch pieces and slice the onions.
Put water, distilled vinegar, sugar and spices in a pot and bring to the boil, remove from the stove and allow to cool.
Put the herring pieces and the onion slices in the jar, layering them nicely, and pour the liquid on top. Put the lid on and leave in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours (preferably it should mature at least overnight). It will keep for a week.
Eat next Saturday (the 24th, Midsummer's Eve) with small, new potatoes boiled with dill, a dollop of sourcream, and Swedish crispbread with butter and cheese. Strawberries with cream for dessert is a must.
There are usually several kinds of pickled herring to choose from and I, like most younger people, only ever eat those that have a white sauce instead of the clear one in this recipe. The white sauce contains creme fraiche or something and hides the look and taste of the herring better than the one above. Children almost never touch herring at all, they get meatballs and hotdogs instead.
Proof that people are strange: the same age group that is into pickled herring is strongly suspicious about sushi, because there's raw fish in sushi.
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Allspice is also used in dishes like black pudding and
sylta, which is an old way of cooking the parts of a slaughtered animal that you can't do anything else with, like the meat you can srape off the head and stuff. Sylta is small pieces of unspecified meat, boiled with spices and glued together with gelatine into a slab that looks a little like a paté, or - like in the days before gelatine - wrapped in bacon rind and pressed together by putting a weight on top of it. I've seen it served at Christmas and sold in the food shop, but I've never seen anyone eat it.
