Stop being led astray by red herrings — here is what the fish is really like

What does the herring have to do with Shakespeare and the Cold War? More than you might think — the humble Atlantic, Pacific and Baltic herring (Clupea harengus, C. pallasii and C. harengus membras respectively) has made an impressive contribution to literary, social and even political history. Perhaps this isn’t surprising given how many of them there are: somewhere in the region of one trillion fish dwell in the Earth’s waters and their spawning grounds are visible from space.

Certain fish emit noises when hauled up from the water; well into the 20th century, fishermen believed herring were ‘speaking’ a word that sounded similar to ‘cheese’. The high-pitched sound comes from air in the herrings’ swim bladder being released through their anuses (the pulses of 1.7 to 22 kHz, lasting between 0.6 and 7.6 seconds, were named a Fast Repetitive Tick, or FRT, when they were discovered in 2003).

The purpose of these emissions is thought to be nocturnal conversation with the rest of the shoal, but, during the Cold War, Swedish biologists were called in by the country’s navy to investigate what appeared to be a more sinister form of communication. From the 1980s onwards, recordings in Swedish waters had been picking up the sonic presence of what appeared to be small Soviet submarines. Depth charges and mines were unleashed in response, although the craft somehow always escaped. The biologists found that the enigmatic pings were in fact not coming from submarines — there was an indisputable correlation between them and the presence of vast shoals of flatulent herring.

Outright skirmishing may have been averted on this occasion, but a Battle of the Herrings did take place in 1429. It was fought during the Hundred Years’ War near the eastern French town of Rouvray and centred around a convoy carrying salted herrings to English troops besieging Orléans. Ensuring the supply of food for the Lenten period was critical, so, when it was attacked by French and Scottish forces, English defence of the wagons turned a minor engagement into a lasting historical lesson. The endeavour was led by Sir John Fastolf, said to have been the inspiration for Falstaff, and himself hailing from part of Norfolk known for herring fishing.

Shakespeare scattered herrings throughout his plays: in Henry VI, Part I the fictional Falstaff declares that ‘if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring’ — shotten here referring to a fish that has spawned and is past its best. In Twelfth Night, the fish pop up twice: Sir Toby Belch wishes a plague on the ‘pickle-herring’ in which he has overindulged, and Feste the fool quips that ‘fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings; the husbands the bigger’.

Herring is eaten in countless guises, from Yarmouth bloaters (cold-smoked without being gutted, lending them an intense, gamey flavour) to kippers, which were once so beloved that there was a national outcry when they were taken off train breakfast menus in the 1960s. None, however, is as amusing as the famously foul-smelling Swedish canned incarnation, surströmming.

Pronounced ‘soor-strem-ming’, it is made with herring from the Gulf of Bothnia, which are salted then canned after fermentation begins, so fermentation continues inside the can. The hydrogen sulphide, propionic and butyric acids produced can be so powerful that the can often begins to bulge ominously. Opening one is a feat in itself and countless viral videos are testament to its profound pungency — and clear comic effect. The smell is invariably compared to rotten eggs and reactions range from watering eyes to retching, but those brave enough to persevere talk of surprisingly complex flavours and waves of umami. Naturally many Swedes look on with bemusement as, for them, it’s less a test of culinary courage and more a beloved tradition, albeit one often lubricated by aquavit.

What of its contribution to linguistics? In Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring: Adventures with the King of Fishes, author Graeme Rigby touches on phrases such as ‘done up like a kipper’, a nod to the splitting of a mackerel to leave it vulnerable and exposed. The most famous coinage, however, is the red herring. A red herring would have been salted and cold-smoked for weeks, a process that turns the silvery fish reddish-brown and ensures a pungent aroma. Due to herrings’ affordability and shelf life of up to a year they quickly became a popular staple in Britain and beyond.

One questionable theory behind the phrase was that escaped prisoners used red herrings to cover their tracks and confuse the bloodhounds tailing them, throwing them off the scent. However, it was journalist and politician William Cobbett, writing in the Weekly Political Register in 1807, who most famously defined it. He recounted a tale that, as a boy, he had used a red herring to distract hounds chasing a hare. His story was a deliberate political metaphor, a way of shaming journalists misled by a 19th-century equivalent of fake news. The story they ran — that Napoleon had suffered a defeat by the Russians — was, in fact, a ruse to deflect attention from domestic matters. Two centuries on, red herrings remain an effective public-relations tactic.

This feature originally appeared in the April 8, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.