‘They take the spawn, and freeing it from the small membranes that connect it together, they wash it with vinegar, and afterwards spread it to dry upon a table; they then put it into a vessel with salt, breaking the spawn with their hands, and not with a pestle. This done, they put it into a canvas bag, letting the liquor drain from it. Lastly, they put it into a tub with holes at the bottom, so that if there be any moisture still remaining, it may run out; then it is pressed down and covered up for use.’
Very different is the manner adopted by the Spaniards in Central America in curing the roe of the callipeva. They do it in this wise:—First, they rub the roe well with salt and a little nitre, then they put a number of them one upon another, and compress them by means of a heavy weight. After this, they make an altar of green boughs, covering the top also with green branches traversing each other. The inside being filled with straw and fresh leaves, which are ignited, they place the roes on the top and cover them well up likewise with green boughs. They are allowed to remain there six or seven days, during which time the fire keeps smouldering and sending up a thick smoke which is concentrated upon the roes by the upper layer of branches. This they call barbecuing. The membraneous covering of the roe is not taken off, consequently it will keep for a long time, the air being entirely excluded from it. When the roe is eaten, it should be cut in very thin slices. The outer coating should not be taken off, but rubbed clean with a dry napkin.
In New Caledonia, the natives are said to eat the roe of the Salmo scouleri mixed with rancid oil, which, in their estimation, gives the savoury morsel additional flavour. The smell alone is said by a traveller to be so nauseous as to prevent any but a native from partaking of it, unless severely pressed with hunger.
Dr. Richardson tells us that, when well bruised and mixed with a little flour, the roe of the methy (Lotha maculosa) can be baked into very good biscuits, which are used in the fur countries as tea-bread.
Among the Anglo-Saxons and in the middle ages, fish of almost every kind were eaten, including many now thought unwholesome. Whales, when accidentally taken on our coasts, appear in those early times to have been also salted for food; an allowance is entered, amongst the other expenses of John de Lee, Sheriff of Essex and Herts, for guarding a whale taken off Mersey Island; for emptying of casks to put it in; for salt to salt it; and for carrying it to the court of Stamford.
Brand states porpoises to have been sold for food in the Newcastle market as late as 1575. Sturgeon, and in the northern nations, whales, were early reserved as royalties; and in England, whales and great sturgeons taken in the sea were, by the Act 17 Edward II., to be the king’s, except in certain privileged places. In the dinner bills of the Goldsmiths’ Company, besides the ordinary fish, we find blote-fish, jowls and middles of sturgeons, salt lampreys, congers, pike, bream, bass, tench, and chub, a seal, and porpoise mentioned.
The red herring is included in an inquisition 28 Henry III.; and the Act of Parliament 31 Edward III., called the Statute of Herrings, shows the great request in which this most useful article of food was then held by the English.
Herrings by the last, or 10,000, were sent from Hull to London, and from Yarmouth to Hull, as also red herrings, in the time of Edward I.
The tariff of prices of fish, fixed by the same king, acquaints us with the rates at which the various kinds were sold. It limits the best soles to 3d. per dozen; the best turbot to 6d.; the best mackerel in Lent to 1d. each; the best pickled herrings to twenty the penny; fresh oysters to 2d. per gallon; a quarter of a hundred of the best eels to 2d.; and other fish in proportion. ‘Congers, lampreys, and sea-hogs,’ are enumerated. Mackerel are first mentioned in 1247, as allowed to certain religions on the third day of the Rogation, and are noticed as a metropolitan cry in the ballad of London Lickpenny;[20] and ‘stokfish, salt fische, whyt herring, réde herring, salt salmon, salt sturgeon, salt eels, &c.,’ are mentioned as common provisions in the Earl of Northumberland’s household, in the reign of Henry VII.; and then formed part of every meal. Thus, ‘for my Lord and Ladie’s table,’ is to be bought, ‘ij pecys of salt fische, vj pecys of salt fische, vj becormed herryng, iiij white herryng, or a dish of sproots.’ And these breakfasts of salt fish extended through the household, whose separate departments, and the way they were to be served with this article, both in and out of Lent, are particularized, and afford a curious picture of the style of living in the ancient Catholic periods, and of the amazing use and consumption of salt-fish. In short, it formed part of the allowances of the King and the Nobility, of monastic establishments, and of all ranks of society.
The fish ordinaries still kept up at the taverns at Billingsgate, where all kinds of fish in season may be partaken of for a moderate charge at fixed hours, are but a continuation of a very old practice, although the locality is removed; for Stow tells us that Knightrider street, was famous ‘for fish and fish dinners;’ and he derives the name of Friday-street from fishmongers dwelling there and serving the Friday markets.