Bean, your experience with capelin took me back to eating out with some locals in Goteborg, Sweden. They insisted that I must eat herring prepared in more ways than the Italians have pasta! Many of them (the herring I hasten to add) were ghastly; one was just as you describe and its smell was indescribably atrocious! They were great people but they had this love affair with herring, even sang songs to the herring as the evening wore on. I'm still not sure how much of it was done just to wind me up.