hey, Sweden!

I'm sure many many others have blogged about the unique trials and frustrations of a trip to IKEA, so I won't add to the list - suffice it to say that I've always found the furniture to be robust, easy to assemble and reasonably priced, and overall generally worth the anguish involved in getting round the shop and finding what you want.

Obviously when you don't find what you want, as happened when we went to the IKEA over in Cardiff Bay the other day to look for some CD racks, the best course of action to take, if you can restrain yourself from going on some sort of mental Viking rampage, torching the place and dispatching everyone therein to Valhalla, is to pop into the Swedish food shop by the main checkouts and buy some weird stuff.

Now obviously you're going to buy some Swedish meatballs, and quite right too. You'll also be wanting a couple of packets of the creamy sauce mix.

I picked up a couple of more exotic things in there the other day as well - Scandinavian food shops are a good fit to my particular food enthusiasms because they are a rich source of bizarre fish products. So in addition to picking up a few jars of herrings in a variety of outlandish marinades (the mustardy ones look particularly good) I grabbed a jar of herring roe caviar-y stuff and a tube of spread made from similar ingredients.


I haven't tried the jar yet, but I did have some of the squeezy fish product on some toast at the weekend, and.....well, it's a bit odd. You'd be expecting something like taramasalata in a tube (and I bow to no man in my love for taramasalata), and it's a bit like that, but overwhelmingly sweet as well. If you've ever had an urge for a spreadable product that combines the fishy goodness of taramasalata and the sweet fruity deliciousness of jam, preferably by tasting like a mixture of taramasalata and jam, then look no further, as this is the product for you. But what to call it? Tarajamasalata? Taramasalarmalade? Answers on a postcard, etc.