Hamburger Herring

Matjes, Bismarck herring, and pickled herring are a significant part of Hamburg's culinary identity. Despite Hamburg's centuries-old tradition of consuming herring, the city never developed a strong tradition of herring fishing. As a result, the city's relationship with the fish appears purely commercial. However, herrings are more than just a resource – they are a fascinating species with a strong sense of community.

As part of her BoSS scholarship, Anastasia Eggers questions the commercial nature of Hamburg's relationship with herring. By giving voice to the fish and conveying their behavioral patterns, she offers a valuable perspective on the discussion surrounding regenerative fisheries. She asks whether and how fisheries can be redesigned, moving away from purely commercial exploitation and towards regenerative practices, thus rethinking the place of fish on the menus of Hamburg's restaurants. Eggers' research also includes the presentation of typical Hamburg herring dishes, showcasing alternative interpretations of a long tradition.

Hamburg gets to know herring starting from the 15th century – as a commodity. Herring from Scania, Flanderen, but also from the North Sea, as well as Helgoland enters Hamburg’s market.

The most important role of herring in Hamburg was the one as a commodity around which the relationship with the Netherlands was built.

In the 16th century, there is an attempt to get to know herring as a fish rather than just a commodity, through fishing in Helgoland, and later around Scotland, but the trading relationship with Holland did not allow that to develop much further. The relationship starts to emerge around trading technology, the handling of goods, their reputation, for which the quality and, consequently, the packaging are important.

Hamburg is so precious about the quality of its herring that it forces the Dutch to work with labels to trace the origin of packers, while the origin of the fish plays a less significant role. Hamburg’s role as a trade center is significant for getting herring into other parts of Germany, which strengthens its relationship with herring, but it stays purely commercial.

What is overseen when looking at fish only as a commodity, when we only encounter it in crates rather than seeing its traces on the surface of the water and trying to understand how they move around, is the fish's worldview.

Herring live together in schools ranging from hundreds to millions of unique individuals. These leaderless structures of herring can modify their behavior on a second-to-second basis, making decisions as a group. The fish schools find themselves in many different situations – from danger to conditions of abundance and scarcity. When under threat, they form a bait ball, a dense conglomeration of individual fish in an attempt to present themselves as one entity, having tricked the Swedish military into mistaking herring schools for submarines over several years.

A group of scientists consisting of Leif Nøttestad, Anders Fernö, Ole Arve Misund and Rune Vabø describe herring as a “socialist” fish, motivating it in the following way:

“Individual fish live in a social community and have to consider the priorities and movements of their neighbouring fish in order to eat, survive and reproduce. They state that the success of the individual herring does not solely depend on its own priorities, but is tightly linked to the decisions made by its neighbours.”

They also describe the feeding patterns of herring that make me think of the ways how we could manage our food systems as well as our fisheries.

“The behaviour of the school is determined by the order of feeding. If a school were to swim straight forward, the fish in front would capture most of the food organisms, and those in the rear would starve. Instead, the bolder individuals in front turn back to either flank and, step by step, return to the rear of the school; in this way each fish gets its turn to feed.”

And while later on I found out from another biologist that fish don’t do this out of having a socialist mindset, but because of their physiology, I find that some of these patterns is something that we as a society could learn from. Intrigued with the idea of learning from herring, I got interested in learning about their behavior from the ones who encounter them on an everyday basis, namely the fisherfolk.

In the North Sea, there is only virtual connection left to the herring, as the whole fishing fleet was sold off to a Dutch company along with their quotas, highlighting the role of these vessels as mere vessels for fishing rights. However, in the Baltic Sea the connection to herring still exists.

While Hamburg does not have a direct connection to the Baltic Sea, the fishing grounds are closer, the herring fisheries are coastal, and herring comes closer by following the brackish waters of the river Schlei.

What will follow next, is an exploration of the challenges that the fish and the fisherfolk are facing in their co-dependencies, and a series of speculations on how this might have an effect on herring dishes with a long tradition in German cuisine.

In the Baltic Sea, not the fisheries but the temperatures are the biggest enemy of the herring

Temperatures rising by just one degree make herring spawn sooner, the roe develop faster, the larvae hatch earlier. Zooplankton is not affected by the temperatures: They wait for the light to start spawning, which creates a gap between the herring and their fodder being born. And these three weeks of starvation make the Baltic Sea herring lose a lot of its offspring.

One way to preserve herring is to immerse it in jelly. To catch it in the moment. But when seeing it at the moment, we must ask ourselves whether there are other ways to transport the taste of the sea to the plate. Or into the jelly. Without taking the fish out of the water. Do some water plants carry the taste of the river as much as fish does? Maybe even Laichkraut, which would translate from German as spawning weed.

This challenge that herring schools are faced with naturally becomes a challenge for the fisherfolk. With fishing quotas for herring being cut by 97% it is almost getting to the point, when the question would need to be posed; who will survive, the herring schools or the fisherfolk for whom herring is a Brotfish [bread fish]

The fish schools might recover after 3-4 years, which might be too long for the fisheries to sit still.

Bückling is a whole smoked herring, and even though now herring is not among the fish that are commonly smoked in Germany, there is this food craft that is being kept alive by fisherfolk. What if we can gradually start adding produce to the smoker? In a company with, for instance, eel, and see how this shared situation can prepare us for times when there is less fish in the river.

While there is less and less herring in the Baltic Sea, there is more and more Gobies. Who are coming from Poland’s coast, multiplying rapidly, and who are suspected to be feeding on herring roe and larvae. Claimed an invasive species, more and more of them are found in fish traps.

Not releasing them back into the water is an act of care for the river and possibly the offspring of herring. However, fisherfolk have been struggling to sell them. And while the impact of these fish on the ecosystem is significant, its actual size is not that big. The fish rarely grow above 20cm. Maybe a perfect size for rollmops? Something that is rather bite-sized, compared to the herring.

Matjes is thought of as a Dutch invention. Although it was not an exclusively Dutch product in the earlier days, but a common preservation practice, The Dutch are thought of to have come up with enzymatic fermentation method for which the pancreas of the fish are essential
While not having enough herring by their own coast, the Dutch became better and better at getting to the English herring, up to a point that the notion of a factory boat was prototyped.
And later on, perfected to a point where they are now still one of the dominant producers of matjes.

The ban on herring fishing in the North Sea in the 70th, after which the herring stocks were restored quite well, did not only have an economic effect on the fisherfolk, a destructive effect on the herring infrastructure, but also had a cultural effect on eating herring in some countries.
In Germany though, the longing for matjes was so strong, that there were attempts to produce matjes from mackerel, which didn’t work.

Now, that there are indications of herring disappearing from the Baltic Sea, we should perhaps look towards other waters for finding matjes – and why not look towards something that is close, that we can build up a connection with and that needs our care, like the Elbe River.
Can we call the bream the herring of the Elbe?
Not quite the same in appearance and size, it is also a fish that is losing its popularity and that is becoming “Poor People’s Food”; also not easy to eat because of the many bones, but also suitable for enzymatic fermentation

Olaf Jensen for letting the eel share the smoking cabinet with some veggies,
Eckhard Panz for taking me along the Elbe river to look for fish, and sharing places of waterplants vegetation.
Jörn Ross for taking me along for the last herring fishing of the season and gifting me some Gobies for experiments.
Sebastian Baier for the wonderful Bream preparation.
Thomas for supplying the Gobies.
Tobi und Matthias Krahl for sharing the perspective on the import market .
Maud van den Beuken for bringing along the pebbles from the Maas.
Katinka Versendaal and BoSS programme for inviting me to continue this research here.