Brook Trout
Wash and drain in a colander a few minutes, split nearly to the tail, flour nicely, salt, and put in pan, which should be hot but not burning; throw in a little salt to prevent sticking, and do not turn until brown enough for the table. Trout are nice fried with slices of salt pork.
A bare-bones pan-fry that assumes a heavy iron skillet over a wood fire and a fish caught that morning. Most of what the original leaves out is heat management.
- The hinge: do not move the fishThe instruction not to turn until the underside is brown is the whole recipe. Trout skin sticks and tears if you disturb it early; leave it four to five minutes over medium-high heat until it releases on its own, then turn once.
- Salt in the panThrowing a little salt into the hot skillet is an old trick against sticking, and it does help on seasoned cast iron. A modern well-heated pan with a tablespoon of fat does the same job more reliably.
- "Split nearly to the tail"Most likely a whole gutted fish opened up so it lies flat, head and tail still attached; the original does not say whether the cut runs along the back or the belly. Ask for pan-dressed trout, or buy whole and open it yourself.
- FlouringPlain flour, patted on after the fish is well dried, is all that is meant. Wet skin steams instead of browning, so drain and blot thoroughly before dredging.
- The salt porkThe recipe says only that trout are 'nice fried with slices of salt pork'; the usual reading is that the pork goes in first so the fish cooks in its fat, with the slices eaten alongside. Blanch modern salt pork briefly if it is very heavily cured, or substitute thick bacon and expect a smokier result.
- Fat and heat"Hot but not burning" means around medium-high, roughly the point where the fat shimmers but does not smoke. Rendered pork fat, clarified butter or a neutral oil all work; whole butter alone will brown too fast for the time the fish needs.
- DonenessA butterflied trout takes about four minutes on the first side and two on the second. The flesh should be opaque and just parting at the thickest point near the spine; carry-over heat finishes it on the plate.
- YieldOne pan-dressed trout per person. A 10-inch skillet takes two at a time without crowding; cooking three drops the pan temperature and the skin will stick.
Brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, is a char native to the cold headwater streams of eastern North America, and in the nineteenth century it was both caught by anglers and sold commercially. The recipe gives no weights or times, and the only real decisions were the heat of the pan and the patience not to turn the fish. Frying fresh-caught fish in rendered salt pork is a habit that runs through American regional cookery of the period, in the mountain South as much as in New England. The Dixie Cook Book, a Southern adaptation of the widely reprinted Buckeye Cookery material, carries a good many of these terse fish entries, which read less like instructions than like reminders to someone who had done it before.