“Welcome on board,” exclaims Max. Or was it Mats? We are mounted on top of a tractor-trailer, space usually probably reserved for fishing nets and crates. We are headed towards one of the 30 still active eel fishing huts, scattered along the sandy Baltic coast of Skåne in the south of Sweden, the part that used to belong to the Danish kingdom.
In charge of this particular hut are twin brothers Max and Mats Svensson, off-beat characters somewhere in their early 70s, who are more than happy to take us along for the ride. Visitors are scarce these days, not only because the eel fishing season is slowly coming to an end but also because in recent years the whole thing has become highly controversial. A hot topic that stirs usually very calm and subdued Swedes and divides the nation.
A part of Swedish Dna
Eel fishing has a 500 year long and colorful tradition here in Skåne; smoked eel on Christmas table and eel feats at Midsummer are part of the local inhabitants’ Dna as much as picking apples and hunting mallards. But as opposed to ubiquitous apple juice and wild birds featured prominently in top restaurants, you will have a hard time finding eels on the menus. Not even in restaurants in Stockholm. Or especially not there.
Ever since back in the 1990s eel was put on the Red List of Threatened species in Sweden, it has become a favorite cause for the activists who are trying to prevent the general population from consuming it and to paint the fishermen who fish them as brutal savages. Indeed, the Red List is an instrument measuring the conservation status of individual species. It is useful when it comes to prioritizing between conservation measures, and it supplies data necessary for the work towards the fulfillment of the Swedish Environmental Objectives. Eel fishing is extremely regulated - only fishermen with an official license can fish them, which amounts to 200 licenses in total, only very small artisan fishermen, banned for the general public and banned for big commercial operations. And if eels are smaller than 70 centimeters they have to throw them back. Every single eel is caught and reported. And fishing takes less than 5% of Sweden's eel mortality, according to several researchers.
Being listed on the red list in Sweden doesn’t mean you are not allowed to consume it, it’s more of a warning, but for activists is all the same, explains Swedish food journalist Mattias Kroon, a local from Skåne. “Never mind that it’s done in the most ethical and sustainable way … All the facts are there,” says.
Daniel Berlin, who is running a well-known 2 Michelin star restaurant Daniel Berlin Krog in the nearby Skåne-Tranas, nods silently. He is a hunter, he puts game regularly on the menu and serves up even mallard tartar, his entire tasting menu is based on strictly local produce. Skåne on a plate, everything from cod to lobster, from wild boar to colostrum. But no eel. “No way. I would love to serve it, I think it’s a fantastic product, but I cannot risk having my restaurant windows broken and walls smeared with paint,” tells.
The Eel Academy
He’s not alone. You won’t find one fine dining restaurant with eels on the menu. Demand, in general, is now tiny, partly because of these pressures. You will however still get them, in all shapes and forms, in one of these fishing huts along the 40 kilometers of sandy coast. Eel parties, as they are called, are one of the highlights of Skåne’s social life, even though not really advertised anymore, because of the controversies.
They start on August 10th, coinciding with Midsummer solstice, and they last for exactly two months, until October 10th. There’s singing, there’s aquavit and vodka (the saying goes you need to down 1 centiliter of strong spirit per 1 centimeter of eel) and there’s eel, of course. In all shapes and forms – smoked, baked, fried, boiled.
Mats and Max are the third generation of eel fishermen and are considered the very best and most knowledgeable out there. They are highly educated in all aspects of both fishing and environmentalism. Back in 1994 they even launched Eel academy with the aim of protecting the eel as a living treasure and keeping the tradition of eel parties alive. But what started as very much eel fishing focused over the years turned into environmental activism – but a very pragmatic one. “If there’s no clean water, there’s no fish, it’s simple,” they explain.
They also make a case of how it’s really the hydroelectric power plants that are threatening the eels, not the fishermen. “70 percent of eels who pass these power turbines on their migrating route will be dead. That’s the real eel enemy, not us,” they say. Together with other eel fishermen they are now actively lobbying to make streams around the power plants, a kind of safe passage for all fish. Per Vidlund from Ängsö Fisk AB fishery in Västerås outside Stockholm that supplies fish to many top restaurants in Sweden and has been for years at the forefront of finding new ways for sustainable and least invasive fishing, paints a complex picture of several different reasons that contributed to eel being put on the Red List – and small scale fishing is not one of them. Power plants, cormorants that came in in 1984 and water pollution.
“I saw a list of 10 of Sweden's worst functioning sewage treatment plants. 3 of them are located in Lake Mälaren in Skåne, which is also drinking water source for 2 million people. According to the law viruses, bacteria, phosphorus and nitrogen must be cleaned, but drug residues, estrogen-like substances, chemicals, microplastics etc. do not" says Vidlund.
Tasting the authenticity
No wonder eel, this mythological creature, has always had a very special place in people’s imagination. To this day. Even their journey to the North after spawning in the Sargasso Sea is an epic one, 7.000 kilometers and a couple of years long before they reach the Baltics. They are also known for their longevity – the oldest eel they ever found was 130 years old, living deep in a well, taunting several generations of villagers. The eels we caught that day – a boatload of them – were between 15 and 20 years old. Thick, meaty, fatty creatures.
Back to the boat, the silver-haired twins seem pleased. “This was a good catch. You brought us luck,” winks Mats. “You can get your aquavit now.”
With that – and a colorful traditional drinking song Max breaks into - the feast in the hut commences. There’s all kinds of bottles of “eau de vie” there in the rustic wooden red cabin, adorned with fishing nets, portraits of vetted fishermen, hooks, old maps, bottles of God-knows-what, fishing lanterns, rusty ladles and graters and reels of birch, serving as coasters on which the brothers place huge pots of steaming creamy eel soup. “It’s just eel tail, carrots, thyme, fennel, and milk,” they shrug. The soup is fabulously tasty, thickened by sheer eel fat and collagen.
The second course is even better, a tray of thick slices of eel, skin-on, that’s been first baked, then smoked in the chimney overnight, so that it’s both smoky and crunchy at the same time. We start applying that “1 cl of aquavit per 1 cm of eel” rule which is working really well at cutting through the fat.
The third incarnation of the eel is the boiled one, a hands-down winner at eel parties, they inform us. It’s served with boiled potatoes, thick mustard sauce and “a secret ingredient”, few drops of Absolut Ren vinegar with 24% of alcohol content. It’s used for pickling herring – and cleaning windows. It tastes accordingly.
Next up is fried eel with caramelized apples and mashed potatoes with some syrup and the very last course is eel, smoked in the oven at 78 degrees, served with scrambled eggs, a surprisingly pleasing combination.
It’s the kind of authenticity that’s rare to find anymore. But the clock is ticking on this tradition like many others, jeopardized by this or that reason. And the fishermen, who speak about eel fishing with both sparks in their eyes and some sadness, seem to know that.
