Huh! And that is the reason for having wooden boards in the first place. I read cleaning guidelines from the Swedish food administration advising against cleaning all wooden boards at the same time as it would mean loosing the desired microflora.
I work in a company where we produce pickled herring and other pickled stuff and we clean the fish before brining it. The file gets pickled not the fish. Though there are fish products that gets picked without previous cleaning. Have you ever tried
Surströming ? "During the production of surströmming, just enough
salt is used to prevent the raw herring from
rotting while allowing it to
ferment. A
fermentation process of at least six months gives the fish its characteristic strong smell and somewhat acidic taste.
[2] A newly opened can of surströmming has one of the most
putrid food smells in the world, even stronger than similarly fermented fish dishes such as the Korean
hongeohoe or Japanese
kusaya.
[3] "
I'm aware of some pickled meat products but none where the entire animal gets pickled.
So you know of this Nordic Christmas dish? It's "lutfisk" in Swedish, "lutefisk" is Norwegian. (lut=lye and fisk=fish)
Yes, unfortunately he is correct. Pest control in food industry is a big problem.
And I agree with
@Rice_Guy, as always, on the pH and taste questions.
Edit: Check this Surströming video (the cameraman is puking):
(how bad can a mouse be ;-) )