When I lived in a dorm in Uppsala there was a girl there, an exchange student from China, and she purchased surströmming for cooking, thinking it was regular fish. So she opens up the can and, boom, smell. Still thinking it is fish (”Sweden is a strange place, maybe they don’t get the fresh stuff here?”), she proceeds to rinse it it under the faucet and then makes a chinese dish with surströmming as the fish ingredient.

Surströmming is great - in small amount together with fresh potatoes and melted butter, on thin crispy bread.