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November 22
Menu: Fried Smelts, Sauce Tartare; Roast Chicken; Creamed Chestnuts; Canned Stringless Beans; Orange and Romaine Salad; Mint Ice Cream; Coffee Fried Smelts-Clean, trim the fins, and remove gills; wipe very dry, roll in flour, brush over with beaten egg, roll in crumbs and fry in hot Crisco until crisp; drain on soft paper, dish on lace paper in a heap, and garnish with fried parsley, serve with sauce tartare. Smelts make a nice garnish for many fish dishes, the tails drawn through the eyes, dressed as above, and fried.
A straightforward breaded deep-fry of a small whole fish, written for a cook who already knew how to manage a kettle of fat. The details worth translating are the fat temperature, the fish itself, and the garnish.
- Fat temperature"Hot Crisco" for a small breaded fish means 365-375F. Below that the crumbs soak; much above it they brown before the fish is set. Fry in batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Smelts, and what to buyRainbow smelt run 3-6 inches and are sold whole, often frozen. Allow 4-6 per person as a course. Many fishmongers sell them already gutted; if not, the recipe's own instructions cover it, and the backbone is soft enough to eat in fish this size.
- TimingThe recipe gives none. At 375F a whole smelt is done in 2-3 minutes, when the crust is set and pale gold. Small fish overcook quickly and turn dry and cottony.
- Wipe very dryThis is the hinge of the dish. Surface water keeps flour from adhering and makes hot fat spit; the three-stage flour, egg, crumb coating only holds on a dry fish.
- CriscoThe book is a promotional volume for hydrogenated vegetable shortening, then new. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil does the same job; modern Crisco has since been reformulated to cut its trans fat content.
- Fried parsleyDip dry parsley sprigs in the hot fat for about 10 seconds, until they stop hissing and turn deep green. They will spatter, since parsley holds a lot of water — use a spider or basket and stand back.
- Lace paperA paper doily on the serving dish, purely for looks and to absorb stray fat. "Drain on soft paper" means unglazed paper of the period; paper towels are the equivalent.
- Sauce tartareIn this era, mayonnaise with chopped capers, gherkins, onion or shallot and parsley. Serve cold against the hot fish.
- The tail through the eyeA garnish trick found in nineteenth-century cookery: the tail is threaded through the eye socket so the fish fries in a ring. It is decorative rather than useful.
Smelts were cheap, abundant and seasonal along both American coasts, which is why they turn up in a November dinner calendar; the market season ran through the colder months. Frying them whole in a crumb coat, with the fussy presentation (a heap on lace paper, fried parsley, tail drawn through the eye), signals a formal dinner course rather than a family supper. The Story of Crisco was published by Procter & Gamble in 1913 to introduce hydrogenated cottonseed shortening to cooks who had always fried in lard, butter or beef fat; deep-frying recipes appear throughout because the product's high smoke point and lack of flavor were exactly the selling points, and a delicate fish that would otherwise taste of lard made the argument neatly.