Treasured Memories with a 94 Year Old and a 150+ Year Old Recipe

First off, I know - pickled herring...mmm, no thanks. The truth is that as soon as you tell me this is a recipe that is over 150 years old and on the cusp of being forgotten, I'm right back in and talking myself into the possibility of it not being terrible.

Pictured above is my grandfather, Louis Walter Pauly, who just celebrated his 94th birthday. Pickled Herring has been a New Year's Eve tradition for him that has been passed down in his family for generations. I've always known that Grandpa loved pickled herring but only recently found out that they used to make it themselves...of course they did, this is not the grocery store generation!

This is where the story begins...

Three years ago, my grandparents sold their home as my Nana was aging and they were moving to a senior living community that would better accommodate their needs. As is the case with all families in this situation, there was an entire household to go through. My mom, much like her mother, was extremely organized while sorting through everything and going through this process. And as you can imagine there were several phone calls that began with "Hey I'm in the basement, would you want.....?" Now, if you're reading this post, you may have gotten to know me a little bit so far and so in 99% of those cases the answer was an unequivocal YES!

In between the phone calls there were several days of just going over to the house, cleaning and packing up. One day in particular we were emptying the storage room in the basement and tucked away on a shelf was this awesome ceramic crock. Not knowing it's history at the time, I just thought it was this amazing find and it would be perfect for making sauerkraut.

Shortly after they moved, we did as well and everything we owned went into storage until we finally moved into our new house this past summer.

It was one day in early autumn this year that my grandfather was at our house for Sunday dinner, which has been a weekly tradition since Nana passed away in 2020, that he noticed the crock out of the corner of his eye and asked me if I knew the history. With the excitement of a kid on Christmas, I listened carefully as he explained that it is the family's Pickled Herring crock. In the late 1800's his grandmother worked in the local library in West New York, New Jersey. As the story goes, it was getting close to the Christmas season and she needed something to make the family's Pickled Herring recipe (a German tradition and family recipe that she learned from generations before her). She went to the library and swiped (well, maybe not, but I like to think that way) an old ceramic paste jar that was used to repair book bindings, cleaned it out and decided that it would be just the thing.

Well, it was just the thing and was passed through the family to my grandfather who hasn't used it in at least 30 years. Imagine my excitement when learning that he also had a copy of the recipe written in his father's handwriting in the body of a letter from some time in the 1960's or 70's.

My mission was clear, we were going to make it again, and he would teach me. Before I share pics of the process, let me share the letter with you:

How to make pickled herring the way I make them.

First, you should buy the herring no later than a week before you want to eat them. You have to soak them 1 1/2 days to 2 days, and then they should be in the brine two to three days before eating.

We have always bought the Holland herring in the little kegs. However a keg may be too much for you. You may be able to buy some loose herring if so get them with the melts, and if you buy the keg, get the mixed, the keg will have it marked on the outside.

After you have the herring take them out of the keg, if loose ones take the head, tail and fins off, then put them in a large tub or big dishpan, I always used that baby bath tub we had. Let cold water run on them, let the first water run off, then fill tub so that the fish swim in the water and let soak for 1 1/2 days to two days changing the water a few times, only use cold water because warm water will make the fish soft.

When you are ready to make the brine. Mix 1 part vinegar to three parts water, for a full keg of fish I always mixed 2 cups of vinegar to six cups of water, add just enough sugar to take the sharpness away from the vinegar. I used a good sized pot, after water vinegar and sugar is in pot, put them on the stove to get warm that way they will blend together better, to cool off the brine I always put cover on pot and left it on back porch, you can put it on back step or garage.

Now to get the fish ready, first empty water, then cut fish open, take out roe and melts, keep melts in a separate dish or bowl. You will find a little silver cord like an intestine take it out and throw it away. After that wash fish again and cut in pieces.

You should have a lot of onions, whole allspice, pepper, cloves and bayleaf.

First peel onions and slice them up. Start off on the bottom of jug with a layer of onion, spices on onion, then a layer of fish, do this until jug is full. Always leave room on top of jug for the onions and the fish eggs (roe) if you have any.

Be sure to put the spices a little of each on top of onions about 6 to 8 of each with one or two leaves of bayleaf.

Now take the melts and smash them up with a fork, so that you have a milk sauce, then take most of the skin out of melts, after vinegar and water is cooled off add some to the melts int he bown and mix so that you will be able to pour into the vinegar and water. Mix well now fill the jugs with the brine. And leave it stand for two to three days.

I hope you will understand what I am trying to tell you, if you do what I say you will have the same kind of herring we always had.

Mother said that she would write and she would add this to her letter.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

How ar eyou making out with the snow? I am telling you we have no idea what it looks like. So far we only had a few days of rain and then only a few hours of it each time.

I was out in the backyard washing the car this afternoon in the sunshine, with a sport shirt and a sleeveless sweater on. This is the life, today was my day off.

May God Bless you all,

Mother and Dad

Gramma and Grampa

XXXXX

Wow, deep breath, so what if I cry every time I read this! At this point they had moved from Erie, PA out to California thinking that the rest of the family would follow suit, but I guess I'm not the first one with snow in my heart.

Okay, so to the recipe. First step, find a keg of Holland Herring. Well, guess what, turns out that purchasing a keg of herring hasn't been a thing for DECADES! So, now what, well my dad and I called every fish monger in New York and PA to learn that you can't even buy herring anymore, they sell jars of pickled herring at the deli counter but it's likely been a lifetime since anyone has made it themselves. If I thought I was determined before, that was nothing to the emotion I was feeling now. No way I was going to let this opportunity pass.

In passing while chatting with my grandfather about this challenge, he said, let's call Hayes Seafood, a local mom and pop shop in Clarence not too far from where he lives. Assuming that if the major seafood counters hadn't heard of it that this would also be a nonstarter I called anyway as a courtesy and last ditch effort for Grandpa. At this point its mid-November and we still don't have a plan.

So I called Hayes and as was the case with most phone calls the first person to answer asked "What are you looking for? I've never even heard of that!" However, he followed it up with, I have someone here that you should talk to though. After a brief hold, I hear "Hayes, this is Nick." My heart sank, Nick sounded my age and I thought it was just another dead end. However, on the other end of the phone I heard him say,"Wow, what are you doing?" Hmm, a glimmer of hope? Nick had actually heard of salt packed Holland herring, it was a start. I got to share the whole story with him beginning with the historic crock and the accompanying recipe as well as Grandpa's excitement and desire to make it together once again at 94. To my delight, Nick was now as excited to make the pickled herring "for Grandpa" as I was! Not only that, I learned that Nick is the 4th generation of Hayes Seafood and proudly showed me the historic documents that they have as artwork adorning the walls of the market. Tradition is something he acutely understood. He said he might have a distributor that could get us fresh herring fillets but he would have to make some phone calls and get back to me - "we'll do it for Grandpa though." We had to make a special trip out there to meet him in person!

Success! He ordered 10 lbs of herring filets from his distributor, we were going to take 6 and he would keep 4 for himself to play around with.

We'd pick them up the Friday before Christmas. Perfect. And then...we had a record-breaking blizzard that caused mass destruction that started the Friday before Christmas and cased a travel ban for the following 5 days. People were stranded, vehicles were stranded, deliveries cancelled...could we have really come this far for mother nature to cancel our plans? At this rate, we had no chance of having it done in time for New Years.

After days of much more pressing plans we finally said, what are we going to do about this herring. In the beginning of January, I gave Nick a call and to our amazement he said "Thank God, I've misplaced your number in all the craziness, but we did get the delivery and stuck it in the freezer hoping you would call." It was picked up and ready for processing the next day!

I can confidently say, while I was excited to revive this recipe, there is nothing glamorous or delightful in the smell of 6 lbs of herring. Rinsing them in a large glass bowl in my laundry room sink elicited more than one gag from my family members as I just kept saying "we're doing it for Grandpa - hold your nose."

And then finally, it was time. He bellied right on up to the kitchen island and started sharpening his knife like it had only been days since he did this last. We got the supplies ready and let him begin the process.

His face doesn't quite convey the feeling that we all had in getting a chance to relive some of his past and learn from his ancestors...I'll be honest though, thank God you can't smell this picture, hah!

The next step was making the brine and then packing the jars - just so - and this was definitely a science for Grandpa, not an art!

Now to the brine, which he asked me to put out in the snow after we prepared it on the stove...so what if I think shoes are overrated.

Once it was cooled, we poured the brine over the top and all that was left to do was to let it do its magic and wait.

Three generations in the kitchen, a treasured memory, another chapter to the story, another learning experience that has taught me more than I could ever hope for.

The best part?! We were having a birthday party for him at our house, because he turned 94 on January 29th and what a great way to celebrate another trip around the sun!

Happy Birthday Grandpa, I love you!

The video quality may not be perfect, but what in life truly is? This is a memory I'll treasure forever though and so I'm happy to share this with you as it is, surrounded by family and maybe a few skeptics as well :)

As for the taste...I'll leave that up to your imagination, but as someone said "It's not terrible." It will definitely be made again.

Thanks for spending this time with me. What's your story?