mareTV: Sweden's High Coast
Sweden's Höga Kusten (High Coast) has been rising by almost one centimetre per year since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. This has created a hilly Baltic Sea landscape on the Gulf of Bothnia with small and large islands. Untouched nature, dense forests and energetic, rather idiosyncratic islanders have plenty of room there. Every year at the end of August a biting stench mixes with the fresh Baltic Sea breeze. For weeks the so-called sour herring, Swedish: Surströmming, is fermented in brine. Ruben Madsen is a producer of surströmming and an absolute connoisseur. In his wooden hut on the island of Ulvön he puts the herring in according to a traditional recipe. At the start of the season, the cans are opened for the first time. Lovers of the "stinky fish" then come from all over the world to taste the now world-famous delicacy in cans. Opening the cans of "rotten fish" is considered internationally as a test of courage, people film themselves doing so, the inhabitants of the High Coast can only smile about it.



















