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Fish Foods

As to the animal characteristics and endowments of Fish, both - generally, and particularly, a reference may be made to former writings, whilst we have now to consider specially the therapeutic principles and capabilities of Fish foods regarded as medicinal. Speaking broadly, the substance of Fish served at table is thought to be lighter of digestion, but less nourishing, than the flesh which we eat as beef, mutton, lamb, veal, and pork. It is credited with the faculty of imparting phosphorus to the brain, and to the nervous organization; it is further believed to be a sexual stimulant, and restorative, but its exclusive protracted use is thought to engender outbreaks of skin disease. Some persons also find Fish, as a food instead of meat, to be a nervine calmative, and to exercise soporific effects. Moreover, the oily fish, such as salmon, mackerel, cod's-liver, herrings, and sprats, when adequately digested, promote fatty development, and bodily warmth. Fish roe is reputed to be a rich source of organic phosphorus; and bone materials, such as phosphates of lime, potash, and soda, are contributed by various fish. Count Romford concluded that of all foods a red herring has the highest specific sapidity; that is, the greatest amount of flavour in a given weight of insipid food with which it is intermixed. Again, a Connecticut Professor in the State Agricultural College found when investigating the comparative values as food, of meat, and other matters of daily sustenance, that the climax of nutrition is reached in the eminently popular Red Herring. Alphonse Karr tells amusingly in his Tour round my Garden of a midnight mass at Lille, where some old women were praying, and preparing a supper called a "reveillon"; " from time to time they drew from under their petticoats a small chafing dish, upon which were cooking two or three herrings ; they turned the herrings, put the chafing dish back in its place, and resumed their prayers." The bloater is so called because partially smoke-dried (bloat, an obsolete term to smoke) after some salting, and is not split open. The fat under the skin of a herring is never of good taste, and is best extracted by broiling. Kippered, or smoked, herrings are frequently dipped instead into pyroligneous acid, which gives them the smoky flavour. "But they furnish," says Dr. Haig, more than 6 per cent of gouty uric acid." About the year 1600 Robert Greene, the Playwright, fell a victim to a surfeit of pickled herrings, and Rhenish wine, at some merry gathering of his associates. A "Yarmouth Capon" (or fowl), is a bloater, and says old Fuller, "Few Capons save what have more fins than feathers are bred in Yarmouth." Irish herrings are frequently smoked with juniper wood. Father Prout was loud in their praise :- 66 "Sure! of Dublin bay herrings a keg, And an egg, Is enough for all sensible folk !

Success to the fragrant turf-smoke That curls round the pan on the fire; While the sweet yellow yolk From the egg-shell is broke In the pan, Who can If he have but the heart of a man, Not feel the soft flame of desire Which inflames e'en the soul of a friar?" 66 Sydney Smith, writing to Lord Murray, from London, in November, 1843, said: "I shall be obliged to you for the herrings, and tell me at the same time how to dress them; but perhaps I mistake, and they ought to be eaten naked." Mr. Benjamin Bell, a famous surgeon of the last century, supposed the eating of fish to be on the whole a mischievous practice; and Dr. Cheyne, a well-known physician of 1730, entertained similar views. The products of decomposition in fish are rapidly formed, and then act as poisons to the human system; occasionally also living fish elaborate similar toxic substances. The widespread impression that much fish-eating entails a liability to skin diseases, and particularly of stale fish to leprosy, is founded on trustworthy scientific data, and has been confirmed by eminent authorities. One practical outcome of this belief is shown by the abolition of fish from the dietary of the patients in the St. Louis Hospital for Skin Diseases at Paris. Perhaps, indeed, Gehazi, the grasping and dishonest servant of the Israelitish prophet in the Old Testament, fell a victim in his pursuit of the newly-cured Syrian to his greed of appetite, as well as to his avarice. If he fed while overtaking the chariot of Naaman, on such an unattractive, but eminently portable diet as dried fish, septic in its nature, his punishment was doubly justified. Certain is the fact that while in England the stale Cod, or carelessly pickled Halibut, are no longer consumed as food by the masses, leprosy has vanished from the land; yet in those countries where this enlightened policy is not pursued the fell disease is still rife. It is true, nevertheless, that the man who eats bad dried fish, though not of necessity a leper, is still somewhat of a beast." Two hundred years, or so, ago cases of leprosy, and scurvy, and allied diseases were frequent throughout England; for at that time all sheep, and cattle, except those reserved for breeding, were killed, and salted down at the beginning of winter; and the meat-eating population had for several months in the year only salted meat. Now, thanks to the cabbages, and turnips, grown in most cottage allotments, and to the winter use of these vegetables on farms, such terrible scorbutic diseases as formerly prevailed are no longer with us. With reference to the theory that leprosy is due in the main to badly-cured, and badly-cooked salt fish, a modern authority holds as an opposite opinion that the leprosy is owing, not to the imperfect curing of the fish, but to the inherent uncleanness of the creature itself. "Fish," says this deponent, are scavengers, garbage-mongers, and devourers of carrion; and although, thanks to a taste for cabbage, we nowadays avoid leprosy, we still contract lupus from the turbot, epilepsy from the festive whitebait, with tuberculosis from the mackerel, and the filleted sole." It has been supposed that the mackerel was one of the fish forbidden to the Israelites of old under the law "Whatsoever hath not fins and scales, ye may not eat." 66 The fat of fish comprises a smaller proportion of the compounds of solid fatty acids than does the fat of land animals. It is mainly composed of the glycerides of various unsaturated acids. The fish-liver oils commonly contain certain bile products (which give rise to characteristic reactions in colour with acids, and alkalies). A considerable proportion of unsaponifiable matter, chiefly cholesterin, is also a usual constituent thereof. Iodine is sparingly present in fish, but the significance of its occurrence is yet obscure. Salt fish is but slowly dissolved in the stomach, because its fibres have become hardened by the salt. Fish oil for medicinal purposes is obtained principally from the Cod, but also from the Pollock, Turbot, Ling, and Dorse. The milt, or soft roe, is the spermatic organ and its secretion (a sexual stimulant?) of the male fish; whilst the ovarian spawn, or hard roe, is that of the female fish. Hufeland, and others, have found the soft roe of herrings useful against tubercular consumption affecting the windpipe.

Considered widely, a diet comprising frequent fish, always fresh, and of proper quality, plainly cooked, is certainly calmative for excitable persons of vivaciously nervous temperament. Nevertheless, Shakespeare has told of others who :- "Making many fish meals, Fall into a kind of male green sickness."

Proteid, and fat, are the chief nutritive constituents found in fish, of which the value as a source of energy depends upon the amount of contained fat. Fish further includes a considerable quantity of waste substance in skin, bones, etc. Lean fish are better tolerated by the stomach than the fat ones, and are apparently more easily digested, as a rule, than the same quantity of lean meat. In hot weather, and for sedentary persons, white fish, plainly cooked, is better than meat. Boiled Haddock is very suitable for an invalid, but containing innumerable small bones. Finnan Haddies, cured and dried at Findhorn, near Aberdeen, were originated through a fire in one of the fish-curing houses at Port Lethen, on the North Sea, which fire partly burnt a pile of lightly-salted, freshly-caught Haddock lying on beds of dry kelp. After the flames were extinguished these smoked fish were found to be so delicious to the taste, that from then until now no one at Port Lethen, or the larger fishing village a mile away (Findhorn), has ever cured a Haddock except by smoking it over seaweed.

With respect to fish as specially stimulating the sexual functions, this opinion is open to question, and Dr. Pereira has pointed out the significant fact that maritime populations are not especially prolific. In the time of Elizabeth, on great occasions the stewards of noblemen provided dinner for their lord's guests; beef, and venison for the rich, but salted fish, then known as "Poor John," also apple pies, for the humbler visitors. Beating the rolling-pin on the dresser served as a dinner bell. In the middle ages fish was a luxury obtainable only by the rich, and, except near the coast, it could never have been served in anything like a fresh condition, the consequence being that smaller folk had to subsist on fish imperfectly salted, (particularly during the Lenten Fast), and disastrous effects on the skin followed. Pepys complained: "Notwithstanding my resolution, yet for want of fish, and other victuals, I did eat flesh this Lent." Sir Henry Thompson has advised that as a rule fish should be roasted (in a Dutch, or American oven), that is, cooked by radiated heat, so that none of its juices may be dissolved away, and lost. Matthieu Williams commends equally for this purpose the side oven of a kitchen range, or a gas oven, these being practically roasters. He directs that as a matter of course the roasted fish shall be served in the dish wherein it is cooked. Here is a way of dressing a fish to make it taste excellent, if you are camping out far afield: "Take some nice clean clay, and work it up a little; then, without either scaling, or dressing, plaster your fish (fresh from the water) all over with the clay, about an inch thick, and put him right into the hot ashes. When 'tis done, the clay, and scales will all peel off, and you'll have a dish that would bring to life any starved man if he hadn't been dead more than a week! That's the ordinary way, but if you want an extra touch, cut a hole in the fish, and stick in a piece of salt pork, and a few beech-nuts, or meat of walnuts, or butternuts, and you'll think you are eating a waterangel." Many sorts of fish will break if suddenly immersed, for cooking, in water under agitation by boiling, which misfortune may be prevented by not allowing the water to actually boil at all from beginning to end of the cooking. Otherwise, not only does the breaking disfigure the fish, but it further opens outlets by which the juices escape, and thereby depreciates the flavour, besides sacrificing some of the nutritious albumin. Izaak Walton advised that "lying long in water, and washing the blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much of their sweetness. You will find, for example, the Chub being dressed in the blood, and quickly, to be such meat as will recompense your labour, and disabuse your opinion of him; yet the French esteem him so mean as to call him 'Un villain." Respecting the Pike, it is observed by Gesner that "the jawbones, and hearts, and galls of Pikes are very medicinable for several diseases, or to stop blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, and to be many ways medicinable, and useful for the good of mankind." The practice obtains generally with doctors to advise convalescent patients that they should first resume animal diet after a severe illness by taking a Sole, lightly and plainly cooked. This fish has a very delicate flavour, and is easily digested by an invalid. To stew the same in milk, carefully lift the fillets from a very fresh Sole, then roll each piece of fish, and fasten with white tape; lay the fillets in a perfectly clean stewpan, and cover them with new milk; season with a little salt, and simmer very gently until tender. The salts of potash, and phosphate of lime thus supplied, are highly nutritious mineral constituents, whilst the comparatively small quantity of proteids is an advantage. An easy way to test the freshness of such fish is to press a finger on the flesh, when, if fresh, it will be firm, and elastic, but if it be stale, then an indented impression is made in the soft flesh. Again, Whiting may be similarly allowed when baked in milk. Take a Whiting, half a pint of milk, half an ounce of fresh butter, and one quarter of an ounce of flour, with salt to taste. Place the fish in a small pie-dish, and pour over it the milk; cover closely, and bake in a slow oven for about twenty minutes; when the flesh leaves the bones readily it is done; then place the fish in a hot dish; knead the butter and flour together in a basin, and add to them the milk in which the fish has been cooked; pour into a saucepan, and boil for five minutes, stirring all the time; serve hot.

Concerning the fried fish of the Jews, their representative modern author of fiction, I. Zangwill, writes: "Fried fish! but such fried fish! Only a great poet might sing the praises of the national dish! and the golden age of Hebrew poetry is, alas, over." "Israel is among other nations as the heart is among the limbs," so sang the great Jehuda Haller. "Even thus is the fried fish of Judæa to the fried fish of Christendom, and heathendom!" With the audacity of true culinary genius Jewish fried fish is always served cold; the skin is of a beautiful brown, and the substance firm, and succulent; the very bones thereof are full of marrow, yea, and charged with memories of the happy past. Fried fish binds Judæa more than all the lip professions of unity. Its savour is early known of youth, and the divine flavour endeared by a thousand recollections, entwined with the most sacred associations, draws back the hoary sinner into the paths of piety. It is mayhap on fried fish the Jewish matron grows fat. Moreover, there is "gefüllite fisch," a delicious thing in Jewish cookery, or fish stuffed without bones; but fried fish reigns above all in cold unquestioned sovereignty; no other people possesses the recipe. As a poet of the century's commencement has sung:-- "The Christians are ninnies: they can't fry Dutch plaice; Believe me, they can't tell a Carp from a Dace."

Izaak Walton "advised anglers to be patient, and to forbear swearing, lest they be heard of the finny tribe, and catch no fish." Concerning whom Leigh Hunt wrote (1830): "Angling does indeed seem the next thing to dreaming. It dispenses with locomotion, reconciles contradictions, and renders the very countenance null, and void. A friend of ours who is an admirer of Walton was struck, just as we were, with the likeness of the old angler's face to a fish. It is hard, angular, and of no expression; it seems to have been a thing 'subdued to what it worked in,' to have become native to the watery element. One might have said to Walton, 'Oh, flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! He looked like a Pike dressed in broadcloth instead of butter." "A pretty kettle of fish" is a familiar phrase as applied to any muddled, or mismanaged concern, the "kettle of fish" being actually a sort of stew well known in Scotland as fish and sauce, generally made from Haddocks. Said Alice (Through the Looking Glass) :- "I took a kettle, large and new, Fit for the deed I had to do; My heart went hop, my heart went thump, I filled the kettle at the pump.

Then someone came to me and said, 'The little fishes are in bed.' I said to him, I said it plain, 'Then you must wake them up again." " It is of essential requirement that all fish before being eaten should be raised in temperature somehow (by cooking, for choice) to a degree at which all germs of an animal, or a vegetable nature, which may be within, or upon the fish, shall be killed. This rule must be enforced with regard to fish as rigorously as to veal, and pork, in each case for similar reasons; for it has been proved that several varieties of fish harbour in their flesh the young forms of certain parasites, which, if they escape death by the process of cooking, and are eaten by man, develop within his intestinal tract into the adult form of the parasite, and cause serious illness, with a long-continued disturbance of health. All fish therefore (except some shell-fish) must be cooked for the above reason, as well as to make it palatable, in some way before it will be eatable; and of all modes of cooking, to boil the fish is easiest, and most certain in effect. Whenever seawater from the open sea is available for boiling fish it should be preferred to water artificially salted, this mode of cooking being known as " à l'Hollandaise." Fish cannot be too fresh for kitchen purposes; the Dutch are as nice about this point at the present day, as the Romans were formerly. According to Seneca, in past times the most fastidious among them would not eat fish unless it were cooked on the same day as that of its being taken, so that, as they expressed it, "there should be still دو a taste of the sea." Garum, the fish sauce of the ancient Romans, was made of certain fish, to be eaten with other fish. Pliny states that garum had the flesh of shrimps originally for its basis ("garos" being the Greek name for shrimp, and "garus the Latin name). Garum was in truth a combination from various sea-creatures the shrimp, scomberfish, anchovy, red mullet (with its intestines, and with the roe, soft, and hard). Bisque soup, made from the Crawfish (Cancer astacus), is credited in Paris with wonderful properties as a sexual restorative. The Crayfish, or Crawfish, has been long held in medicinal repute also in England, but chiefly as providing what used to be employed as "Crabs' eyes," consisting mainly of lime, as phosphate, and carbonate. They were given powdered for acid indigestion, and heartburn. The Crawfish is found about banks of rivers, in holes, or under stones, feeding on small molluscs, and larvæ. In the French capital "le Bouillon d'Ecrevisses” is esteemed as analeptique, anciennement recommendé dans la phthisie pulmonaire, dans le lèpre, et dans les affections du systeme cutané." A spirited allusion to this bouillon was made by Meslin de Saint Gelais, Chaplain to Francis the First, of France, in a poetical letter addressed to a lady :- 66 66 Quand on est febricitant Madame on se trouve en risque, Et pour un assez longtemps, De ne jouer a la brisque.

Et de mal diner, partant De ne point manger de bisque Si rude, et si facheux risque Que je bisque en y songeant." 66 Shrimps, again (or Gravesend sweetmeats), when fried in their shelly coverings, are very delicious; the chitin, or horny material of the outer coat, is thus cooked to crispness; though for this effect the Shrimps must be fried just as they come from the sea, not as they are usually sold by the fishmonger after having been boiled in salted water. Shrimps," as Robert Lovell supposed (1661), “were held to be good for sick people, and of few excrements, being of the best juyce." These seaflies" are caught in great abundance near Margate; the red, or beaked, Shrimp is superior to the brown, or flat-nosed species. In the South Sea Islands live Shrimps, pure, and transparent, are scattered over a salad, have vinegar dashed quickly over them, and, being caught up in a leaf, half-a-dozen of them are 66 tossed into the mouth. Shrimps are carnivorous feeders, being of repute against consumption, and highly restorative in chicken broth.

The Sole does not keep long, and should be eaten as fresh as possible; when in roe its flesh is insipid. The Lemon Sole is, if not really a different species, at all events inferior in kind. A well-flavoured Sole is the "Sea-partridge."

The Red Mullet, abundant on all Mediterranean coasts, and taken in the English Channel, particularly at Plymouth, is termed by some the "Woodcock of the Sea," as its trail is eaten if properly cooked. When dressed the fish should be only lightly scraped, or not scraped at all; the gills should then be pulled away, and such part of the trail as is connected with them; no other evisceration is required. The name of this fish, Mullus surmulletus, is said to be derived from mullus, the scarlet sandal, or shoe, worn by the Roman Consuls. Fishermen usually scrape off the scales with their thumb-nails immediately the mullets are caught, else the rich crimson hue invariably fades; then the bared skin becomes brilliantly red. The flesh is white, and remarkably free from fat. The flavour of the fish improves with its size, and small fish deprived of the liver are more or less insipid. The method of cooking them, by rolling in paper to prevent injuring the skin, has been observed for at least two thousand years. The Romans placed enormous value upon the Mullet, paying its weight in gold when unusually large. Sussex boasts an Arundel Mullet, a Chichester Lobster, a Shelsey Cockle, and an Amerly Trout.

Sprats contain a large amount of oily fat, disagreeable in flavour, and quite uneatable; this causes all culinary preparations of the Sprat except when broiled, to be unattractive, or repulsive; broiling dissipates, or volatilizes, most of the oil. The Sprat (Encrasicholus, or bitter-headed) should be decapitated, and deprived of its gall; pickled like the Anchovy it strengthens the stomach; the flesh taken before meat loosens the belly. The true Anchovy was esteemed of old as giving tone to the stomach, restoring appetite, loosening the belly, and good against agues. When these fish are salted, and placed in barrels, a little reddish ochrous earth is added to give them colour, which mineral is dangerous unless well washed off at the time of serving the Anchovies. Sprats are often supplied as sardines; naturalists do not recognize a fish called a sardine. This term merely signifies a mode of preparation; perhaps Pilchards may be likewise employed. Pepys wrote (August 27th, 1660): Major Hart come to me, whom I did receive with wine, and Anchovies, which made me so dry that I was ill with them all night, and was fain to have the girl rise and fetch me some drink." Dr. Kitchener tells that the Epicure Quin was superlatively pleased with the Banns of Marriage between delicate Ann Chovy, and good John Dory.

A former Yarmouth historian relates that the Dutch fishermen highly esteem the medicinal qualities of the Herring. An old saying of theirs runs to the effect, "Herrings in the land, the doctor at a stand." The fat beneath the Herring's skin, like that of the Sprat, is never of a good flavour, and ought to be extracted before the fish is eaten; this is best done by broiling the Herring. A century back Herring plasters were much in vogue. Again, a Red Herring when steeped in tar was thought to be a sovereign remedy for a cow which had lost the power of chewing the cud.

Half a century or more ago the labourers in Cornwall dined at noon, for the most part on Pilchards, and potatoes cooked in their jackets. The fish, boiled together with the potatoes, were placed on plates, but the cooked potatoes were cast in a heap on the bare table, each member of the family taking a helping, and peeling their own potatoes. Shipments of the Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus), when salted, are sent from Cornwall largely to Italy, for consumption there during Lent. These fish appear in immense numbers on the Cornish coast about the middle of July. They resemble the Herring, but are thicker, and rounder. "Fools are as like husbands as Pilchards are to Herrings." Train oil is expressed from the Pilchard's liver. "The Perch, or Peurch, is so wholesome," says a German proverb, "that physicians allow him to be eaten by wounded men, or by men in fevers, or by women in child-bed." The Plaice (Platepa) has ruddy spots on its surface, and a small, wry mouth. Tom Hood pretended to be angry with his wife for buying this fish when broken out into red spots; also, writing to a favourite child, he told her that having caught a Plaice spotted red he thought he had "caught the measles."

The Whiting (Merlangus), one of the Cod family, has flesh of a pearly whiteness. "And here's a chain of Whitings' eyes for pearls." Whiting soup had at one time a notoriety for ১ 66 66 66 increasing the flow of breast milk with nursing mothers, but Dr. Routh gives very much the preference to Conger Eel soup in this respect. "Do you know why it is called a Whiting?" asked the Gryphon (Alice in Wonderland). "I never thought about it," said Alice. Why, it does the boots and shoes," the Gryphon replied very solemnly. "What are your shoes done with? I mean what makes them so shiny?" Alice looked down at them, and said, "They're done with blacking, I believe." "Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went on to say in a deep voice, " are done with Whiting; now you know." "And what are they made of?" asked Alice in a tone of great curiosity. Soles, and Eels," the Gryphon replied. "Any Shrimp could have told you that." "Merlans mangés ne restent non plus dans l'estomac, que pendus à la ceinture." Cockles, and Winkles, are popular shell-fish in the poorer parts of London, and other cities. As a street scene in a squalid South London district on a dismal winter's Saturday night, at the various itinerant stalls for cheap articles of food, we read how "a pale-faced young woman is poking a Cockle into her year-old baby's mouth with her forefinger, as she tells the merchant that the 'little un tykes to 'em as kindly as 'er dad does." On another stall hard by are tiny flat fish which suggest a minimum of nutriment, lying at a respectful distance from more or less fresh, and worn-looking haddocks, the vendor proclaiming the merits of his wares in no modest terms. (Venator, in The Complete Angler, has told of those that venture upon the sea, and are there shipwrecked, drowned, and left to feed haddocks.) "As we presently moralize on the pathetic scene, the devoted mother with the infant, who can scarcely have yet digested its Cockle, comes again in sight, stops at a small fruit stall, purchases a very green apple, and, biting off one half, begins to administer the other by easy instalments to the babe, perhaps as an antidote to the fish course. No wonder the chemist's shop over the way does a roaring trade; and the tall-hatted, frock-coated young doctor, standing on his doorstep, looks cheerfully up and down the street awaiting developments." 66 Turning down a side-street on our homeward journey, we pass a provision shop lit up by rows of flaring gas-jets, and with many cheap dainties exposed outside. The pious proprietor, not content with extolling his butter, eggs, cheese, and bacon on three large announcement boards, devotes a fourth, and still larger one, to warning all and sundry to prepare themselves betimes for a future state, this board standing in suggestive proximity to a festoon of the highly questionable carcases of tenpenny rabbits."

Mackerel, when a big haul has been made on the coast, finds its way abundantly into the cheap markets on hucksters' stalls for the poor. In former times, because of its perishable nature, it was allowed to be sold on a Sunday. Gay notes, "Ev'n Sundays are prophaned by Mackrell cries." This fish furnishes nearly 3 per cent of xanthin, or uric acid. "But flounders, sprats and cucumbers were cry'd, And every voice, and every sound were try'd.

At last the law this hideous din supprest, And ordered that the Sunday should have rest, And that no nymph the noisy food should sell Except it were new milk, or mackerel.

Hence mack're seem delightful to the eyes, Tho' drest with incoherent gooseberries."

Art of Cookery.

The Mackerel is from Maculellus, spotted, of the Scombridæ, because of their brilliant prismatic coats.

The Turbot (Psella maxima) is called after " a top," being also the Water-pheasant (with a flavour of its flesh, like that of the game bird), and the "Cannock fluke." The Greeks and Latins named it "Rombus, the lozenge, which beareth justly that figure." It is the largest flat fish of European waters except the halibut. For invalids fond of Lobster, but who may not eat this, a salad thereof may be well imitated by cutting strips of cold boiled Turbot, and colouring them outside with beetroot juice, or by substituting cold Turbot, with pepper, and vinegar. "If you would live long" says a trite adage" avoid controversy, lobster salad, and quarrelsome folk."

The Salmon (Salmo, king of fish) is red-fleshed, and contains much fat, which is interspersed amongst the muscular fibres, and is accumulated under the skin. This fish is at its best just before spawning; on returning afterwards to the sea it is thin, and wasted. "Daintie, and wholesome is the Salmon," wrote Fuller, "and a double riddle in nature: First, for its invisible feeding, no man alive having ever found any meat in the maw thereof; secondly, for its strange leaping, or flying rather, so that some will have them termed Salmons, a saliendo." The fish is not named a Salmon before it attains the age of six years; in its first year it is called smolt, in the second sprod, in the third mort, in the fourth fork-tail, and in the fifth half-fish. When Salmon is crimped immediately after its removal from the water its flesh remains more solid, and retains the curd, or the coagulable albumin, which becomes a milky curd after the fish is boiled; but when the fish is kept a few days its flesh undergoes a change whereby the curd disappears; the meat then becomes more tender, and is improved in taste, or, as some enthusiasts declare, oily and balsamic properties are developed which render the flesh nutritious, and invigorating, diuretic, pectoral, and restorative. By the fishmonger," says The Art of Cookery, 66 66 Crabs, salmon, lobsters are with Fennel spread That never touched the herb till they were dead."

Tinned Salmon is a questionable form of food, because at times the can has not remained completely air-tight, or the fish being left, however short a time, within the can after it has been opened, acts on the tin, and poisonous products are formed. Byron has recorded the prevailing notion that in his day Salmon was thought to need serving with a corrective sauce of some kind :- "From travellers accustomed from a boy To eat their Salmon at the least with Soy."

The Tench (Tinca vulgaris), being of a golden yellow colour, was formerly commended, on the doctrine of signatures, for giving to persons with jaundice, and liver obstructions. It was further supposed to have some healing virtue in its touch. Izaak Walton says in his Compleat Angler: "The Tench is observed to be a physician to other fish; and it is affirmed that a Pike will neither devour, nor hurt him, because the Pike being sick, or hurt by any accident, is cured by touching the Tench."