To fry a couple of score or so
Upon a fire clear.
“They eats so well, they bears the bell
From all the fish I knows:
Then let us eat them while we can,
Before the price is rose.”
(Chorus—ad libitum) “O! ’tis my delight,” &c.
The last two lines are replete with the poetry and philosophy of the poorer classes: “Let us eat them while we can, before the price is rose;” for even sprats are sometimes luxuries unattainable by the humble. Exceedingly succulent sprats labour under the disadvantage of being slightly unwholesome. To quote Mr. Samuel Weller’s anecdote of the remark made by the young lady when remonstrating with the pastrycook who had sold her a pork pie which was all fat, sprats are “rayther too rich.” And yet how delicious they are! I have had some passably good dinners in my time; I have partaken of turbôt à la crême at the Trois Frères Provençaux; I have eaten a filet à la Chateaubriand at Bignon’s: yet I don’t think there is a banquet in the whole repertory of Lucullus and Apicius—a more charming red-letter night in the calendar of gastronomy, than a sprat supper. You must have three pennyworth of sprats, a large tablecloth is indispensable for finger-wiping purposes—for he who would eat sprats with a knife and fork is unworthy the name of an epicure—and after the banquet I should recommend, for purely hygienic and antibilious reasons, the absorption of a petit verre of the best Hollands.
To return. As regards salmon, nine-tenths of the aristocratic fish are brought up by rail in barrels, and in summer packed in ice. Salmon and salmon-trout are not subjected to the humiliation of being “knocked down” by an auctioneer. They are disposed of “by private contract” at so much per pound.
Of dried and smoked fish of all kinds the best come from Yarmouth; but as regards the costermonger and street-vender—the modern “billestres,” of dried haddocks, smoked sprats and herrings, entire or kippered—they are little affected by the state of the cured fish market so long as they can buy plenty of the fresh kind. The costermonger cures his fish himself in the following manner:—He builds a little shed like a watch-box, with wires across the upper part; and on this grating he threads his fish. Then he makes a fire on the floor of his impromptu curing-house with coal or mahogany dust, and smokes the fish “till done,” as the old cookery books say. There is a dealer in the market to whom all fish-sellers bring the skins of departed soles. He gives fourpence-halfpenny a pound for them. They are used for refining purposes. And now for a word concerning the crustacea and the molluscs. Of oysters there are several kinds: Native Pearls, Jerseys, Old Barleys, and Commons. On board every oyster-boat a business-like gentleman is present, who takes care that every buyer of a bushel of oysters pays him fourpence. No buyer may carry his oysters ashore himself, be he ever so able and willing. There are regular “shoremen,” who charge fourpence a bushel for their services; so that whatever may be the market-price of oysters, the purchaser must pay, nolens volens, eightpence a bushel over and above the quoted rate.