The dear, generous, philanthropic packers! To think that it is not for their own sake but to help the consumers that they are so very anxious to give up olive oil, and to persuade the Government not to make them state on the label what kind of oil they use!
They point out—disinterestedly, of course!—that cottonseed oil is "claimed to be physically as pure as olive oil, just as digestible, and even a better preservative." The question, therefore, "is simply up to the manufacturers of cottonseed oil to educate the public to these facts and destroy the prejudice against their product."
In England, in the summer of 1912, a different kind of education was carried on by the importers of a special brand of sardines. In big advertisements the public was informed that a sardine is not necessarily a pilchard but may be the chinchard, the herring or the small mackerel, or the brisling which fattens on the small shellfish of the Norwegian fjords. All of these become sardines only when they are cured. The flavor depends in part on the kind of fish canned, the food they eat, the time of the year they are caught and, in part, on the way they are cured. For the better grades olive oil is used, but for the cheaper class trade coarse olive oil is taken, or cottonseed or peanut oil. Of olive oil there are fourteen grades and the best of these is the right kind if you want the best sardines.
Here were interesting things for British sardine buyers to ponder. They were thus warned not to continue to ask the grocer simply for sardines, but for sardines of a particular kind put up by a reputable firm. If the firm which boasted that it used the best fish and the best of the fourteen grades of olive oil has a wise head it will live up to its claims. In such things honesty is by far the best policy—in the long run.
Smoked sardines are almost, if not quite, as good as those simply packed in olive oil. They are usually marketed as Kieler Sprotten and should be better known in this country.
FRIED FISH AND FRITTO MISTO
Doubtless the word sardine comes from the Italian island, Sardinia, around which the small fish used for canning abound.
Small fish of various other kinds are a favorite article of diet all over Italy. In Venice, for instance, among the most characteristic sights are the numerous little shops in which piles of fried fish are exposed for sale inside the open window, if window there be. They are eaten with slices of polenta, or thick corn meal mush, cut off with a thread from a huge loaf. The gondolier, as he passes by, exchanges his penny for some of this food and departs munching it with evidence of perfect satisfaction.
The oil used for frying these little fishes is not, as a matter of course, the virgin oil of the month of May. But it is infinitely better than the "cooking-butter" sent to the kitchens of thousands of wealthy Americans. It is more economical, too, than our frying baths. When the French composer Massenet, a noted gourmet, visited Italy for the first time, he enjoyed a meal consisting of "an excellent snail soup and fish fried in oil which must have done service in the kitchen at least two or three years."