Sun 5 Oct 2008
In Praise of the Pickled Herring
Posted by anaglyph under Art, Competition!, Food & Drink, Hmmm..., Poetry
[23] Comments
Today,while looking for something else entirely* I came across an image of a curiously titled painting, ‘In Praise of the Pickled Herring’, by the 17th century Dutch painter Joseph de Bray (someone of whom, until today, I was entirely unaware).
The website where I learned of Joseph, which is dedicated to ‘Food in the Arts’, leads me to believe that this painting is a fine example of ‘Fish Still-Lifes’, an artistic niche that had also previously (and regrettably, I must add) passed me by.
This is the full version of the painting (click to get a closer look), which features, as a centrepiece, a stone table drapped with herrings and onions, and inscribed with the poem that gives the painting its name. It was penned by preacher and poet Jacob Westerbaen, and contains the picturesque declaration that the consumption of pickled herring:
Will make you apt to piss
And you will not fail (with pardon) to shit
And ceaselessly fart…
I immediately set about attempting to track down a complete rendering of Westerbaen’s poem, because if anything at all in this world is certain, it is that Cow readers will be clamouring to learn all that is to be known about literature that involves soused fish, poetry and bodily functions. It appears, alas, that no-one has seen fit to bring the genius of Westerbaen’s herring musings to the digital world, which is a shame because I feel it is more than obvious that there is a monumental dearth of pickled fish verse in our lives today. To that end, faithful Acowlytes I know you will more than rise to the occasion, so I’m declaring a TCA competition:
Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write a paean to preserved fish. You may include references to the digestive process if you wish. Most importantly you should understand that you toil in the shadow of greatness – make Jacob Westerbaen proud!
There will be a real prize this time.
___________________________________________________________________________
*Another reason I love teh internets.
___________________________________________________________________________
23 Responses to “ In Praise of the Pickled Herring ”
Trackbacks & Pingbacks:
-
[…] (Thanks once more to Atlas for putting me on the trail. I suppose that now I really am going to have to give him a prize for the Pickled Herring Poetry Contest.) […]
And all this time I thought it was all the beer that was consumed with the pickled herring that caused the aforementioned maladies.
Live and learn I guess.
it like Middle Ages, Iron Chef!
There are many things for which I could wish.
The most desired is a herring pickled
And a large glass of beer alongside
(Whose bubbles keep my fancy tickled)
And perhaps a stout wench to sit astride
As the fragrant flesh slides down my gullet
Ah! for the love of cured fish.
And in this glad room I’d have all my friends,
And such of their sluts and boys as they like.
(For sitting on youngsters beats sitting on stools).
When the herring runs out we’ll eat a smoked pike
And drink some more beer til we’re nothing but fools
And we’ll dine on fine eels, and whiting and mullet.
At The Cow where the fun never ends.
Mike: I’ve always held that beer is the antidote to pickled herrings.
Malach: I don’t quite see the connection myself. I must have missed the poetry on Iron Chef.
Cissy Strutt: What a fine effort out of the gate!
I’m not much of a one for writing poetry (or limericks – and i’m sure you’ll get plenty of those) but I’ll join in the general clamouring….
C’mon Cowpokes! Where are you all?!
Let’s strike up a fond serenade
For herrings avec marinade!
For eels in red wine!
For sardines in brine!
And old fish in pink lemonade!
How succulent this pickled herring!
That attracts such attention and staring
Since more than just gas
Has escaped from my ass
Seems I’ve shit in the pants that I’m wearing.
Atlas Cerise – we have continence aids over at the gimcrack
Pickled fish, pickled fish,
Pickled fish, gobble!
To a State of Great Fartiness
went the six diners.
“Today’s pickled herring day!
“Leave none to throw awayâ€
To a State of Great Fartiness
went the six diners.
“Forward, to the pickled fish!”
Did a one miss his dish?
No, tho’ they all knew that
Fartiness slumbered:
Their’s not to poach or fry,
Their’s not to leave it lie,
Though onions make them cry:
To a State of Great Fartiness
went the six diners.
Herring to the right of them,
Herring to the left of them,
Onions in the front of them…
Their farts volley’d and thunder’d;
When lesser diners legs might gell,
Boldly they ate, and well!
To a State of Great Fartiness
went the six diners.
Flash’d all their fork tines bare,
Flash’d as they whirled in air,
Skewering the herring there,
Gobbling the onions, while
All other diners wonder’d:
Plunged in the farty smoke
Right thro’ the walls it broke!
Diners and passersby
Reel’d from the farty stroke,
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they sat back, but not
Not all six diners.
Herring to the right of them,
Herring to the left of them,
Onions in the front of them…
Their farts volley’d and thunder’d;
Blasted by farty smell,
While host and hostess fell,
They that had ate so well
Came back from the buffet
Back from the putrid smell,
The two that were left of them,
Left of six diners.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild smells they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the smell they made,
Honor them ‘till it fades,
Noble six diners.
Ahh… Truly a work of fart. Colonel, Colonel, a poet thou art, indeed!
Well done Atlas – a perfectly formed limerick once more and Colonel – The Charge of the Fart Brigade will surely go down in history!
Who’d have known the old man
to have so much farts in him…
Obviously Polanski doesn’t want a pickled fish prize in the mail.
Colonel:
Tis a gentleman here. [Farts] A plague o’ these pickle- herring! How now, sot?
Pil: Obviously neither do you.
Atlas: Isn’t it the point?
Oh well. That’s the MOST disappointing effort I’ve ever had for a Cow Competition.
I’ll leave it up for one more day, but at this stage, the prize is going to the Colonel for sheer scope.
C’mon peeps! The world is going to hell in a handbasket but that shouldn’t affect poetry for chrissakes!
Scope, yes I grant you. Originality now, that’s another thing.
Oh, and promptness.
Yes, yes, I know – no correspondence will be entered into.
raffenstaffen
Once I ate a pickled herring, sending my intestines flaring,
And soon I found my pants had filled with something I abhor.
As I stood up, something sticky, with a smell that made me sickly,
Felt as though was running quickly, quickly down the pants I wore.
“‘Tis just some sweat,” I told myself, “running down these pants I wore –
Only this, and nothing more.”
O, the farts that I was squeezing, now had others coughing, wheezing,
And each separate little ass bomb wrought my guests upon the floor.
Plausibly I tried denying, but the squeaks had proved my lying,
From my crack of full on farting, farting that had made me sore –
From forever flowing flatus that was making my ass sore –
Bleeding now, from farty roar.
Presently the gas grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “Or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
“The fish upon which I was dining, has destroyed my stomach’s lining,
Making farts that keep on coming, coming out like raucous snore –
How sincerely I am sorry for my bottom’s awful snores –
Someone please, open a door.”
At behest of my guests’ griping, I set out with hopes of wiping
Up the mess that had filled my pants – and now could not be ignored.
Quickly now, my belt unbuckled, tightly gripped by hands white-knuckled,
I dropped my trousers down upon, down upon my bathroom floor.
And lo the mighty mess before my eyes upon the floor.
Shit-stained drawers, forevermore.
I started scrubbing out the stink, with soap and water from my sink,
Now swabbing, sponging up the shit – but the stains just spread out more.
No matter how much I had wished, the dreadful muck from pickled fish,
Had found a way to stain unlike nothing I had seen before.
A stubborn splotch forever set, in underpants just white before.
Pickled herring? Nevermore.
Oh, that’s SO disgusting, but so perfectly pastiched and so completely a suck to the teacher (with the Poe & all) that I’m afraid that the Colonel has been pipped at the post. (Sorry Colonel, you really were more than a contender – Tennyson would have been… er.. awed). An honourable mention to Cissy Strutt for subtlety in a subject that I thought completely abnegated such a thing, and for promptness and loyalty (everyone else take note – Cissy is a GOOD Cowpoke). But the prize must go to Atlas.
Now I have to go hose out the WordPress code on this post and throw some lavender pillows around.
I enjoyed writing that one more than any Rasputin poem I’ve ever done.
I vote Atlas Cerise “most improved”.
I am Cissy Strutt and I endorse this prize-winner.
oh well. I’d just have shared it with Cissy anyways, and pickled herring doesn’t mail well.
great. I’ve been posting a lot of my poems on http://www.unitedworldpoets.com. they have free cash poetry contests and I’m hoping to win the one for this month.