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Herrings, Red, Broiled
Soak a couple of red herrings in a little warm water. This is unnecessary for fresh Yarmouth bloaters. Dry them well with a cloth, make four or five incisions crosswise on the back, dredge a little flour over them, and put them on a gridiron about six inches above a clear fire, or toast them before the fire. This fish may be opened at the back and rubbed inside with a little cold butter, if this is liked. Time, five minutes. Probable cost, 3d. Sufficient for two persons.
A five-minute breakfast dish from the era when cured herring was the cheapest protein in Britain. Almost all the work is in managing the salt.
- Know what a red herring isA red herring is a whole herring salted hard and cold-smoked for days or weeks until it is stiff, mahogany-coloured and intensely salty. It is not the same as a kipper (split, brined briefly, lightly smoked) or a bloater. Modern fishmongers rarely stock true red herring; imported hareng saur or salt-cured smoked herring from Eastern European and North African suppliers is the nearest thing.
- The soak is the hingeAn old-style red herring is close to inedible without it. Warm water, changed once, is the method; taste a shred of the flesh before cooking and soak longer if it still stings, which for a hard cure may mean several hours. A bloater, as the recipe says, needs no soaking at all, and nor does a modern kipper.
- BloatersYarmouth bloaters are ungutted herring, lightly salted and briefly cold-smoked, with a soft gamey flavour from the enzymes in the retained gut. They are perishable in a way red herrings are not, and must be kept refrigerated and cooked within a day or two of buying.
- Gridiron and clear fireA clear fire is one burnt down to glowing coals with no flame or smoke. The modern equivalent is a grill or broiler element preheated fully, with the fish about six inches below it, or a ridged pan over medium-high heat. Turn once.
- The incisionsFour or five cuts crosswise through the skin on the back stop the fish curling as the skin tightens and let heat into the thickest part. Worth doing even under a broiler.
- TimingFive minutes total is right for a cured fish that is already firm and effectively preserved; it is being heated through and crisped, not cooked from raw. Longer dries it to leather.
- Butter insideThe recipe offers this as an option, 'if this is liked': split the fish along the backbone and rub the cut faces with cold butter before grilling. The butter melts into the flesh and offsets the salt.
- Yield and servingTwo herrings, two people, as stated. Serve with brown bread and butter, a poached or scrambled egg, and strong tea; boiled potatoes and mustard are also traditional with cured herring.
Red herring was the great preserved food of the medieval and early modern North Sea, salted and smoked so heavily that it kept without refrigeration for months and travelled inland and overseas as a cheap Lenten staple. Great Yarmouth built its fortune on the autumn herring fishery, and its smokehouses are credited with the bloater, a lighter, later cure made possible by faster transport and quicker turnover, associated with the town from the nineteenth century onward. The two appear side by side here precisely because they are different products: Cassell's tells the cook to soak one and not the other. The phrase "red herring" for a false trail is generally traced to the fish's pungency and its supposed use in laying or spoiling a scent for hounds, a story repeated far more often than it is documented. By the time this dictionary was compiled, cured herring at threepence for two was a cheap urban breakfast.