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Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss the salty, pungent, fermented fish known as rakfisk. It will use marketing and media representations to show how the dish is coded as an extreme food, as heritage food, and as a (mostly) masculine arena of play and companionship.

Paper long abstract:

– When my dad opened the rakfisk bucket, the flies would fall dead from the walls!

In a feature article in the men’s magazine Vi Menn from 2008, the reporter visits a group of friends experimenting with making the most extreme version they can of the fermented fish known in Norway as rakfisk. The quote from the article can serve as an illustration of how much male companionship, male play and the connection between fishing and masculinities are present in how Norwegians conceive of the production and consumption of rakfisk today.

In this paper I will briefly present the history of rakfisk, before looking into its revival as a heritage food and an arena of Norwegian (rural) masculinities. While other heritage dishes may be more strongly coded as belonging to a female arena, or are simply seen as belonging to a particular region of the country, rakfisk is very often presented as a dish both produced by and eaten and enjoyed by tough men. Its salty and pungent flavour is definitely an acquired taste – but why is it male? The paper will discuss the phenomenon of gendering food, as well as the gendered aspects of extreme foodstuffs in general.