LIVE FISH BROUGHT TO THE KITCHEN.
The Paradise of fish-eaters is Copenhagen. New York and other American port towns could get some very important hints from the way things are done there. Before 1892 it was difficult to bring live fish into the town without contaminating them with sewage and spoiling their flavor. In that year a general sewage system was constructed by which the city's sewage is carried two kilometers out into the open sea, thus putting an end to the contamination of the ocean front and the harbor. The gratifying results of this reform were described by the London "Lancet's" representative at the Sanitary Congress in Copenhagen, October, 1910:
"This not only puts an end to the nuisances that used to arise, but enables boats full of live fish to come close to shore and right into the town by means of the fresh-water canals. In this manner at least the smaller fish are kept alive till the moment they are sold. Any number of wooden boats are pierced with holes and filled with fish; these boats just float on the surface of the water, and the living fish is taken out of them when wanted. But as every one cannot go to the water's edge to buy fish, there are water tanks on wheels and the live fish is brought to the doors of the people's houses.
"Never before," this sanitarian continues, "have I been in a town where all the fish, whether cheap or dear is so beautifully fresh. The principal fish market was built by the municipality and is let to a wholesale fish salesman. It is a delight to see how clean and bright these premises are kept. There is no spreading the fish on slabs so that dust and dirt may settle on them. Very pretty tessellated tile tanks are filled with running water, and here the smaller fish swim about."
In Berlin and other German cities the fish are also brought alive to the kitchen. An eminent artist who is also an ideal hausfrau, Mme. Gadski, informed me that she wouldn't think of buying a dead fish. "They are brought to the kitchen alive, and I reject those that are not swimming about," she said.
The Germans are great eaters of fresh-water fishes, and there are ingenious arrangements for bringing them to market alive.
The large fish of the ocean cannot, of course, be delivered alive, but the transportation facilities are now so excellent that not only the more expensive kinds, like sole, turbot, and sterlet, but the cheaper sorts, like cod, haddock, plaice, and herring, are brought to city and town markets in prime condition.
A German culinary authority specially calls attention to the fact that the "ancient and fish-like smell" is a thing of the past. In the days when transportation facilities were less adequate this odor made it necessary to boil fish in two waters, throwing the first away. Now the cook has only the natural odor of the unspoiled fish to deal with, which, being agreeable, is carefully preserved in the cooking.
The fishing places off the German coast are visited daily by fast steamers to collect the catch. The boats are provided with refrigerating apparatus, and so are the express trains which at Stettin, Geestemmünde, Cuxhaven, and other coast towns, take the fish from the boats and carry them at full speed to the cities all over the Empire.