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Fried Smelts
Clean, trim the fins, and remove gills; wipe very dry, roll in flour, brush, over with beaten egg, roll in crumbs and fry in hot Crisco until crisp; drain on soft paper, dish on lace paper in a heap, and garnish with fried parsley, serve with sauce tartare. Smelts make a nice garnish for many fish dishes, the tails drawn through the eyes, dressed as above, and fried.
A straightforward breaded fry, but it depends on very dry fish and fat hot enough to crisp the crumbs before the smelt overcooks.
- The hinge: dry fish, hot fatDamp fish will shed the crumb coating into the fat, so wipe each one inside and out. The book gives no temperature; around 375F is the usual modern deep-frying range, hot enough to set the crust before the fish overcooks.
- CriscoCrisco in 1915 was hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, and this book was written to sell it. Any neutral frying fat or oil with a high smoke point does the same work.
- Cooking timeMarket smelts are small, and at that size they cook through quickly, on the order of 2 to 3 minutes, until the crumbs are deep gold. Longer and the flesh goes dry.
- CleaningSmelts are often eaten whole, bones and all. Gills and fins come out as directed; the recipe's "clean" presumably takes in gutting, though the smallest smelts are frequently cooked ungutted.
- Lace paperA paper doily on the serving dish, a common way of presenting fried food in this period; it takes up residual fat. A folded napkin does the job.
- Fried parsleyUse dry, well-stemmed sprigs and lower them into the fat off the heat for 10 to 15 seconds; wet parsley spits violently. It should stay green, not brown.
- The garnish trick"Tails drawn through the eyes" makes each fish into a ring before breading, so they fry in a curl. It is fiddly and purely decorative; skip it unless you want the period look.
- YieldNo quantity is given. Reckon 6 ounces to 1/2 pound of whole smelts per person as a course, more as a main dish.
- Sauce tartarePeriod tartare is mayonnaise with capers, gherkins, onion or shallot and parsley, sharpened with vinegar. Serve it cold against the hot fish.
Smelts were one of the cheap seasonal abundances of the North Atlantic and the Great Lakes, arriving in spring runs so heavy that cookbooks of the era treat them as an everyday fry rather than a delicacy. This particular book, A Calendar of Dinners, was published by Procter & Gamble to promote Crisco after its 1911 introduction, and the instruction to fry "in hot Crisco" is doing double duty as advertising throughout the volume. The plating directions, a heap on lace paper with fried parsley and tartare alongside, echo what is generally described as Anglo-French restaurant practice, where small fried fish were customarily sent out dry, piled and green-garnished. These calendar books were organised by the day's menu rather than by dish type, so a recipe sits wherever its dinner fell.