To be honest, I did not know the meaning of this word; it seemed to me it was a delicacy. It turns out that every year before Christmas, tin cans are sold in Norway, prettily and festively packaged.
And so, sometime in the pre-Christmas days, my Norwegian husband said almost solemnly that for breakfast we would eat anchovies. And I at once became solemnly curious. He opens this little tin, and what do I see: cleaned sprat, spicy-cured, without the head. With the sprat my husband boiled soft-boiled eggs and made little sandwiches.
I honestly admit that for me to eat fish for breakfast is nonsense, even the most “delicate” kind! I politely declined and began to tell the story of Soviet sprat, which was the cheapest snack with vodka and potatoes in their jackets.
And I also remembered a stupid but inventive Soviet anecdote. Here is the anecdote: a modest Soviet worker by the name of Petrov unexpectedly, for the whole factory collective, started bringing sandwiches with black caviar. All the workers go to the canteen for lunch, and Petrov, you see, separates himself from the collective and quietly eats his scarce sandwiches.
They called a meeting (in those days it was the norm for the whole collective to examine a “straying” member). They summoned Petrov and “called on” him to explain where he got this black caviar — “you don’t live according to your means, comrade!” Petrov scratched the back of his head and honestly confessed: “Well I, this caviar, with these calloused hands of mine I get all night, picking the little eyes out of the sprats’ heads!” Those are the kind of anchovies we have.