Home › Soup Recipes › Young Fisherman
Young Fisherman
3 lbs. different kinds fresh water fish 2 carrots I large tomato I leek 2 onions Bunch sweet herbs 1 teaspoonful vinegar 1 teaspoonful soy 2 turnips 1 stalk celery Salt, pepper and paprika to taste Water
The book gives the formula but not the method, which was common in ingredient-list style collections aimed at cooks who already knew how to build a fish soup. What follows fills the gaps rather than restating the list.
- No method is printedTreat it as a two-stage soup: simmer heads, bones and trimmings with the vegetables and herbs to make a broth, strain, then poach the fish flesh in the strained liquid at the end. Cooking everything together for the length of time the vegetables need will reduce the fish to threads.
- The fish"Different kinds fresh water fish" points to a mixed catch rather than one named species; perch, pike, catfish, carp, bass and whitefish would all fit. The recipe does not say whether the 3 lbs is whole or dressed weight, but buying whole fish gives you heads and frames, which carry much of the flavour. A mix of one firm and one soft-fleshed fish gives good body.
- Timing for the fishSkinned fillets or chunks need 6 to 10 minutes at a bare simmer, depending on thickness. The broth itself can go 30 to 40 minutes; longer than that and fish bones turn the stock bitter and glue-like.
- SoyA teaspoonful of "soy" here is soy sauce, used in this period the way cooks used mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire — as a savoury darkener, not an Asian flavour note. A standard Japanese or Chinese light soy works; do not substitute a thick sweetened sauce.
- Bunch sweet herbsA bouquet garni: parsley stems, thyme, a bay leaf, tied or bagged so it can be pulled out. "Sweet" means aromatic rather than sugary.
- The vinegarOne teaspoon in a potful is a seasoning, not a pickling agent. It sharpens the finished broth; add it at the end, off the heat, so the acidity does not flatten during cooking.
- Water quantityNone is given. Two to two and a half quarts covers the bones and vegetables and reduces to a sensible soup; add it cold and skim the scum as it rises.
- YieldServes six as a first course, four as a main with bread.
Freshwater fish soups belong to a much older river-and-lake tradition than the chowders and bisques that dominate American cookbooks — the French matelote, the Flemish waterzooi, the Central European carp soups all rest on the same logic of using whatever the day's catch brought, of whatever size, and extracting the frames for broth. Where the name "Young Fisherman" comes from is not clear; books of this sort often dressed plain formulas in picturesque titles. The teaspoonful of soy is of limited help in dating the recipe: bottled soy appears in British and American household cookery from the eighteenth century onward as a savoury seasoning sitting on the shelf beside mushroom ketchup and Harvey's sauce, valued for colour and depth rather than for any association with the cuisines it came from.