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Broiled White Fish-Fresh
Mrs. G. E. P.
Wash and drain the fish; sprinkle with pepper and lay with the inside down upon the gridiron, and broil over fresh bright coals. When a nice brown, turn for a moment on the other side, then take up and spread with butter. This is a very nice way of broiling all kinds of fish, fresh or salted. A little smoke under the fish adds to its flavour. This may be made by putting two or three cobs under the gridiron.
A bare-bones charcoal-grilling method from the era when whitefish came out of the Great Lakes by the barrel. Almost everything hinges on the fire and on starting the fish flesh-side down.
- The fish"White fish" here means the Great Lakes whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), a fatty freshwater fish split and flattened whole. A split whole trout, char or mackerel of 1½–3 lb behaves the same way; fillets work but cook faster and need a well-oiled grate.
- Inside down firstThe cut side goes over the coals first and takes nearly all the cooking — five to eight minutes for a split fish, until the flesh is opaque and browned. The skin side gets only the brief turn the recipe describes, a minute or so, mostly to crisp it.
- "Fresh bright coals"Coals burned down past open flame to a steady glow, roughly medium-hot. Live flame scorches the outside of an oily fish before the centre sets.
- The gridironA hinged fish basket is the modern equivalent and solves the problem the original ignores — a split fish sticks and tears when turned. Oil both the grate and the fish skin regardless.
- The cobsDried, stripped corn cobs were free fuel in a midwestern kitchen and give a mild sweet smoke. The two or three the recipe puts under the grate are the same gesture as a handful of soaked wood chips; hickory or apple chips do the job now.
- SeasoningPepper only; no salt is called for anywhere, and the butter goes on at the end. Salting the flesh 15 minutes ahead firms it and helps it hold together on the grate, which is worth doing.
- DonenessThe period cue is browning. Current food-safety guidance for fish is 145°F at the thickest part; cooks aiming lower (130–135°F) are trading margin for moisture. Whitefish is fatty and forgiving, but it goes dry fast past that point.
- Salted fishThe note that this suits salt fish assumes an overnight soak with several changes of water first — otherwise the result is inedible. The recipe takes that step for granted.
- YieldA 2–3 lb split whitefish serves three or four. Finish with butter, lemon and nothing else.
The Home Cook Book first appeared in Chicago in 1874; a later Canadian edition was credited to "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada." Its roots and its fish are midwestern, and whitefish was an everyday luxury of the Great Lakes basin — abundant, shipped iced by rail, and often praised in nineteenth-century cookery writing as a fine freshwater fish. Broiling over coals on a gridiron was the standard treatment before ranges with reliable broiler compartments became common, and the corn-cob trick is a piece of prairie thrift: cobs left from shelling corn burned hot and cost nothing. The recipe's confidence that the same method suits "all kinds of fish, fresh or salted" is a reminder of how much salt fish was eaten alongside fresh, and a contributor's initials — Mrs. G. E. P. — were credit enough in a community cookbook sold for charity.