PIKE.
The pike was very little esteemed by ancient gastronomists, who viewed it only as an ignoble inhabitant of muddy water, and the implacable enemy of frogs.[XXI_135] It was a received opinion that this despotic ruler of ponds lived for several centuries, and it may be correct.
Among the examples of longevity of this fish, the most remarkable is that of the pike of kaisers’-lantern, which was nineteen feet long, weighed 350 lbs., and had lived at least 235 years. It is reported that the Emperor Barbarossa himself threw it, on the 5th of October, 1262, into the pond where it was caught in 1497; and that this enormous pike wore a golden ring, which was made so that it would expand, and on which was engraved the date when the fish was spawned. Its skeleton was for a long time preserved at Mannheim.[XXI_136]
The multiplication of pikes would be immense if the spawn and pickrel, in the first year of their existence, were not the prey of several other fishes; for it has been calculated that in a female pike of middling size 184,000 eggs were found.
“In the north, and particularly in Siberia, the pike is preserved salted and smoked; the largest only are used, those weighing about two pounds. When they have been drawn, cleaned, and washed, they are cut in pieces, stratified with salt, in barrels. A brine is formed in which they are left for three days, then they are dried or smoked for one month. After this time they are put in another barrel, with fresh salt, wetted with vinegar.”—Bosc.