Muikku/Vendace

Muikku/Vendace, originally uploaded by HyperBob.

How is it that you can buy gutted muikku? All the heads have been cut off and the insides are missing. I can only imagine some machine that slices the heads off and some suction method to remove the guts. But all that is beside the point, the important thing is how to cook them and how to eat them.

Well you have to cook them in rye flour that has been spiced with salt and pepper. Nothing else, and they have to be fried in butter. Not olive oil, not margarine, not sunflower oil.

And when it comes to eating them you eat them whole. You eat the skin, the tails, the fins, the bones, everything and you do it with your fingers. No forks and knifes.

Muslims have the habit of eating food with their hands, and we may scorn this practice but it makes very good sense. When you pick a fried fish up with your fingers you make a judgement of how hot it is, and if it is safe to put it into your mouth. How many times have you speared a pototo with you fork and popped it straight into your mouth without checking how hot it was?

At the end of the meal you can lick your fingers for desert.