Herring researchers: ambassadors of Dutch flavours and taste

One of the advantages of working on a governmental vessel is that you have to spend the weekend in port. Of course it is not very efficient for the execution of the survey, but since you find yourselves a foreign port, you may as well just enjoy your time!
A great way to spend you time is let the local people taste "Maatjesharing" (Dutch, slightly salted and fermented herring) and convince them that is edible and tasty.
This weekend in Aberdeen, on Sunday evening, our team visited Fiona, Berta and Katherine (just back from a day of Munro bagging) and presented to them a portion of homemade Maatjesherring.

After a brief introduction by the guys...

... Berta is the first to try. Fiona can hardly wait. Katherine is less enthusiastic!

Fiona's turn. Berta is going to have a second one!

Katherine has a hard time to swallow a small piece of herring. She actually found a bone!

Her sister Fiona shows how to eat a herring, Dutch style!

Conclusion: Berta and Fiona seemed to enjoy eating Maatjesherring. Katherine still has to become used to the idea of eating (almost) raw herring. May be next year?
We left a portion for Fiona for a tasting session in the Marine Lab in Aberdeen.
Happy, to have found ourselves new ambassadors of Dutch marine quisine, we walked back to Tridens where we welcomed Alessandro, student from Wageningen University, who will join us next week and will contribute to this blog.