Scandinavian chefs are establishing themselves on the world stage.Nordic Reach Magazine offers an introduction to the world's stinkiest dish, as well as the world's most Scandinavian experience, the smorgasbord. Plus, you’ll learn how to make your own gravlax - it's easy, once you know how.

Scandinavian food, in this case food from Sweden, may be a future staple in every American kitchen: In September 2005 famous Swedish chef Tina Nordstrom made her debut on American television with the first of a series of PBS programs called "New Scandinavian Cooking," which were initially broadcast on Channel 13 in New York. We met up with her for our issue 13.
For more info: www.scandcook.com

Travelers visiting the north of Sweden two hundred years ago, particularly foreigners with sensitive noses, spoke from time to time of the extraordinary stink that blanketed the countryside. One 18th-century merchant wrote home complaining that on these journeys, it was necessary to abstain from kissing the otherwise attractive local women on account of the smell of sour ?sh that enveloped them. He did not realize the odor was simply a by-product of one of Sweden's oldest culinary traditions: fermented ?sh. The fermented herring is an exotic delicacy presumably only a native Swede (and perhaps only a norrlanning, or northerner) can fully appreciate. Each August, there is a rush to buy the year's harvest of surstromming. The ?sh is sold in ordinary tins - similar to the one you see pictured here - that, by the time they are sold, have become more or less spherical in shape due to the pressure caused by the fermentation of its contents. When opened, the can releases a mighty puff of mercaptane gas, a substance so potent that 0.000,000,000,04 of a gram per liter of air is quite enough to make it fully perceptible even to the underdeveloped human olfactory organ.

Not all Scandinavian menus are exclusively about fish. The "Wallenbergers" featured above, are one of the richest meat dishes in the Swedish kitchen. Recipes and photos were reprinted with permission from ICA Bokforlag's new book, "From the Swedish kitchen."