Marinated and spiced kilu or sprat was a thing when dad was a small child in Tallinn. Grandfather would take him down to the fish market on a weekend. I remember a story of dad’s looking in wonder at a man dropping a kilu into his opened mouth, with delight.
When I spotted tins of Tallinn kilu in a supermarket, I bought one, in dad’s honour. We opened it at our campsite to see rows of little fish looking much like sardines with their heads on and insides intact. This seemed odd, but, when in Estonia ... I popped the whole thing into my mouth and it was chewy and slimy at the same time. I could see Greg didn’t think much of this either. For a while we heroically crunched and swallowed the national delicacy, and took stock. No need for a repeat trial.
Greg used a pocket-knife to fillet the tinful, and we chucked that into our tomato pasta sauce for the evening meal, and that was that. When we told Estonians of our ordeal they laughed their heads off.
Much better to spread a little sour cream on rectangular slices of rye bread and cover them in filleted kilu, hard-boiled egg, and chopped, fresh dill. This is a kilu võileib and I can assure anyone who likes fish that this is truly delicious.
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