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Anchovies, Simple Method of Serving
Wash the anchovies lightly, and dry them in a soft cloth, being careful to handle them gently while doing this. Open them, and remove the backbone without injuring the fish. Arrange them neatly on a dish, garnish with the white of egg and a little finely chopped parsley; cover them with oil, and serve. Probable cost, 1s. for a half-pint bottle. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A dressed plate of cured anchovies rather than a cooked dish, and it stands or falls on the fish you start with. The Victorian cook was working from whole salt-packed anchovies sold by the bottle, not from the filleted oil-packed tins on shelves today.
- What "a half-pint bottle" containedWhole anchovies packed in coarse salt or a heavy brine, bones in, sold by the bottle or the keg. The closest modern equivalent is salt-packed whole anchovies from an Italian or Spanish grocer, often sold loose or in large tins.
- Washing is not enough"Wash lightly" may assume fish less aggressively salted than some of what is sold today. Rinse salt-packed anchovies under cold water, then soak them 20 to 30 minutes, changing the water once or twice, and taste one before deciding they are done. Under-soaked anchovies will overwhelm the oil and the egg entirely.
- Boning themAfter soaking, the fish are soft enough that the backbone lifts out in one piece if you open the belly with a thumbnail and pull from the head end. Work in a bowl of water. Pat dry before dressing, or the oil will slide off.
- If you use tinned filletsOil-packed fillets are already boned and desalted, so skip the washing and soaking; drain them and blot the packing oil away before arranging, since that oil is usually poor and will dull the dish.
- The garnish"White of egg" means hard-boiled white, chopped or pushed through a sieve.
- The oilGood olive oil, poured over generously enough to coat rather than to submerge. A squeeze of lemon is not in the original but is entirely in keeping and cuts the salt.
- Cost and yieldOne shilling for a half-pint bottle. "Five or six persons" means five or six small portions as part of a spread, not a course in its own right.
Cured anchovies reached British tables as a store-cupboard staple rather than a fresh fish: salted in the Mediterranean and shipped in barrels and bottles, they were valued for the depth they gave to sauces, butters and the bottled essences of the Victorian larder. The dish belongs to the English savoury tradition, the sharp salty course served at the end of dinner after the sweets, a habit generally traced to the club and dining-room culture of the nineteenth century and one that had largely faded by the middle of the twentieth. The instruction to handle the fish gently and remove the bone "without injuring the fish" is the whole art of it: an anchovy that arrives at table in one clean piece looks like skill, and one that arrives in shreds looks like carelessness.