Dory
This is a fish regarded by many as the most delicious of all. The ancients named him after the king of gods-Zeus. The moderns have honoured him with the patronage of no less than three saints-Peter, Christopher and Martin. St. Peter found the tribute-money in a dory, and left thumb-marks upon him for ever afterwards; so that he is known to be the fish of St. Peter, who as the gate-keeper of heaven-in Italian janitore-provided for him the name which has been corrupted into John Dory. Other learned authorities deny that the dory exists in the fresh-water lake of Galilee, and maintain that the marks upon his body came from the fingers of St. Christopher, who took hold of the fish in order to amuse the infant Jesus when he was carrying Him upon his shoulders across the sea. And others yet again declare that the dory is best appropriated to St. Martin, because although he is good at all seasons he is most perfect at Martinmas. Anyhow, we have a good excuse for making acquaintance with the fish on the days of all three saints. His name comes really from the colour of his skin, which is dorée or gilded; and we may be grateful in the knowledge that the best dorys in the world are caught upon our southern shores, off Plymouth and off Brighton.
Clear away his excessive finery of fins; fill him with veal stuffing or oyster stuffing, boil him in salt and water, and serve him with nut-brown butter, English sauce or Holland sauce. Quin, the actor, was a great lover of this fish, and would travel to Devonshire expressly to eat him. He insisted that the fish should be boiled in sea-water and that the best sauce was one which brought Miss Ann Chovy into union with Mr. John Dory. John is at his best from September to January.
Duck
Kettner gives the method in a single line, which assumes a cook who already knows how to handle a large flatfish-shaped whole fish. The essentials are the water temperature, the sauces, and the wastefulness of the fish itself.
- Do not actually boil itJohn Dory is a lean, fine-flaked fish and a rolling boil shreds it. Bring the salted water to the boil, slide the fish in, then drop the heat so the surface barely trembles at 160-170F; reckon 8-10 minutes per inch at the thickest point, or until the flesh parts from the backbone.
- "Salt and water" and Quin's sea-waterSea water runs about 3.5 per cent salt, which works out at roughly half a cup of salt per gallon. Kettner gives no proportion; it is Quin's insistence on sea-water that points to that strength.
- Trimming the "excessive finery"The long dorsal filaments and the spines along the back and belly are genuinely sharp. Take them off with kitchen shears before doing anything else, working from tail towards head.
- YieldA John Dory is mostly head and frame. Buy on the generous side: a 3 lb whole fish feeds two, a 5 lb fish three or four. The head and bones make an excellent stock, so keep them.
- Stuffing a poached fishVeal stuffing here means a forcemeat of minced veal, suet or butter, breadcrumbs and herbs; oyster stuffing is crumbs and chopped oysters. Either must be sewn or skewered in and the cavity closed, or it will wash out into the pot. Check the stuffing reaches 165F, since it will be slower than the fish around it.
- The three sauces, translatedNut-brown butter is beurre noisette, butter cooked to a hazelnut colour and often finished with lemon or a splash of vinegar. Holland sauce is hollandaise. "English sauce" is generally plain melted butter sauce, thickened with a little flour.
- Miss Ann ChovyQuin's joke is a recommendation for anchovy sauce: melted butter sauce with anchovy essence or pounded anchovy fillets beaten in.
- SeasonThe September-to-January window reflects the fish's condition rather than availability. John Dory is now largely a bycatch fish and often expensive; gurnard or a firm bream takes the same treatment.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), published under the name of the London restaurateur Auguste Kettner and generally attributed to the journalist E. S. Dallas, is arranged as an alphabetical dictionary, which is why an entry can be half etymology and half cooking direction. The saint-lore here is folklore rather than record: the dark spot on the John Dory's flank has been attached both to St Peter's thumb and to St Christopher, while the St Martin claim in this entry rests on the fish being in best condition at Martinmas. The Italian derivation offered for "John" from janitore is one of several competing guesses, the French jaune and dor fe being the more commonly suggested route. James Quin, the actor named at the end, was a real and famously large-appetited figure of the mid-eighteenth-century London stage, and the story of his travelling into Devon for the fish, along with the anchovy-sauce pun, circulated in print long before Kettner picked it up. The entry is a good illustration of how Victorian food writing sold a fish: not on price or method, but on saints, seasons and a celebrity gourmand.