:) On a serious note, every other kind of shrimp I have tasted besides "northern prawn" (Pandalus Borealis) is just meh in comparison. To clarify: the rest of the culinary world use non-tasteful shrimp as taste carriers. Meanwhile, north sea shrimp are.. the primary source of taste, here.
I think you will be surprised when you eventually taste it!
That surströmming thing is mainly a bravado thing our northern people do. It's good for headlines and machoism both, which is why it has survived, I guess.
I was going to say - bah, in Canada we have exceptionally tasty shrimp on the west coast, sold directly from the boats and it will beat your borealis to a pulp. But then, just in case, I checked what your shrimp looks like and guess what - it's the same one! :)
I'll second this. I recently spent some time in Sweden and, on the whole, really enjoyed the shrimp. In particular, the shrimp salad sandwiches. There were bad ones, of course. Bröd & Salt was a fast-food/bakery chain whose shrimp salad wraps weren't very good at all. However, I had some at other places that were good enough to inspire me to try my hand at them once back in Canada.
The results with Canadian shrimp? Superior to anything in Sweden, but probably because the shrimp went from frozen to cooked and on the plate in under an hour, while the sandwiches I had in Sweden probably had shrimp that had been sitting in the fridge for a while. The taste of the shrimp was very similar. In any case, I strongly recommend trying your hand at making Swedish shrimp salad sandwiches. They're easy to make and delicious!
Edit: It would appear I used "Wild Atlantic Prawns", which were likely Pandalus borealis. So, probably the same species. They're very common in Canadian supermarkets. I didn't realize how lucky we are!
