I will raise you Egyptian fesikh, a fermented/rotten fish dish that if not prepared correctly can lead to death from botulism poisoning. I was invited to a dinner in Egypt to try it and I could smell the rotting fish the moment I got out of the taxi.
This year, like every year, Egypt’s Health Ministry issued a warning that advised Egyptians against eating fesikh.
This, definitely this!
Going back to mushy peas for a second, the word marrowfat is found in the Oxford English dictionary around 1730 so it’s not a new thing.
Rather like Pease Pudding, which is mentioned in Victorian literature and is rather like Indian Daal but made from yellow split peas and spiced, I suspect that mushy peas were originally cooked with spices much like a lot of English food was many, many years ago.
The peas were probably left to mature and dry on the plant and then stored to be used in the winter.
Has anyone got a cook book from the 18th Century?
One thing is smoked fish, and whole different thing is fermented fish. The latter is an acquired taste where the “acquiring process” can also be described as children abuse 
And how did you solve the dilemma? No thank you is not what you say when invited to the table in these cultures.
To defend the Dutch herrings: They were definitely fresh. Didn’t help them in my book though.
My doctor assures me my taste and smell will return one day.
Sure…
Btw, there was an experiment on tv (don’t remember which channel etc) - for one week some journalist ate everything on the menu in an aristocratic house from the XVIIIth century …no wonder many of them had gout…
(they cooked and served everything like back then)
i had never heard of fermented fish, so I had to look it up:
Sounds like something you give to your enemies to wash down the mushy peas.
you mean the time before oat milk, Tofu, light-products and everything high-protein?
Surströmming
I’m absolutely conviced this is a tourist-catch and no Swedish person ever eats that.
As far as I remember there was a lot of game meat, liver, kidney etc puddings which don’t seem very healthy either - when in excess.
(way, way before oat milk and tofu lol)
Sounds like what I ate during my childhood.
“the biggest challenge when eating surströmming is to vomit only after the first bite, as opposed to before”
Remember once in Brussels eating Moules parquées that is raw mussels served on a half-shell with a mustard sauce, only once.
How much English cuisine have you actually sampled?
When people describe English cuisine on this forum and what they ate there before they moved here, I can honestly say most of the stuff I hadn’t heard of, let alone tried - and I’m English!
Would you say, for example, Swiss-German cuisine was better than English, and if so, why? (or is that why you used the word “broadly”?)
You mean this:
Swiss cuisine is not distinctive enough to be a fair comparison as 1) Switzerland is small 2) Switzerland is sandwiched between 3 great cuisines (the French, Italian and German/Austrian) so “national” dishes are largely a variation of traditional dishes in the above 3 cuisines.
So, one could eat fantastically well in London, provided it’s “international cuisine”, but I’d personally take sauerkraut vs mushy peas as a side dish and a butter pretzel vs. banana sandwich (or whatever the fancy name was given to that) any day.
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure people who grew up with English cuisine have all the reasons to love it, its just that its not exactly very tasty for much of the rest of the world.
I like Fondue, Raclette, Rösti and Muesli but whether there are original Swiss German dishes I am not certain.
That kind of proves my point - As a child I never once had mushy peas nor a banana sandwich.
