The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

Then, there is the delicate smook, either fresh or salt water, weighing from 10 to 16 lbs.; the stone bass, of the river or sea, much esteemed, from 2 to 4 lbs.; the delicate black snapper, weighing 4 or 5 lbs.; the chuck, a delicate fresh-water fish, of about 6 lbs.; and the cutlass, a good flat frying fish: which will suffice to show that there need be no lack of a dish of good fish for the West Indian epicure.

The anchovy or silver fish (Engraulis edentatus of Cuvier and Val) abounds on the palisade shallows of Port Royal harbour. They are a most exquisite fry, cooked, strung together on a palm straw through the eye by half-dozens, and served up as they serve whitebait.

King fish are only occasionally taken within the harbour, at Port Royal Bank. They are very delicate eating and weigh from 10 to 20 lbs. The king fish mackerel (Cymbium regale) is taken at the head of the harbour by being gently towed for with a line. The pine fish, in great estimation with the Jews, which ranges from four to thirty pounds, are frequently harpooned from Port Royal dock yard, six feet long.

The sun fish, or lucannany of Demerara, is excellent food, being firm, fat, and with few bones; owing to its extreme lusciousness, it is difficult to salt or dry. It is about two feet in length and attains to 7 or 8 lbs. in weight.

The arawan is another Guiana fish, particularly fine as food, but like the last named, very fat and luscious.

The pacou are caught in large numbers by means of weirs or dams, and weigh on an average 7 lbs. each. They are split, salted, and dried, and when cured, highly prized. The morocoto, or osibu, is also a most delicious fish, in taste nearer resembling flesh than fish, and eagerly sought after by the epicure.

If the gourami, which the French have introduced to the tanks and ponds of Cayenne and their West Indian Islands, was entitled to no more than half the praise Commerson bestows upon it, it must be considered a fish worth some trouble and expense to possess. ‘Nihil inter pisces,’ he says, ‘tum marinos, tum fluviatiles, exquisitius unquam degustavi.’ If neither the fishes of the sea nor those of fresh water streams, to Commerson, who had described so many fishes, and tasted as many as he had described, were found to exceed the deliciousness of the gourami,—the Osphromenus olfax,—it should be imported into every West Indian colony. The Dutch at Batavia, in Java, have long bred it in large earthen vases, changing the water daily, and feeding it on herbs of rivers and ponds, particularly on the Pistia natans. In the Mauritius, they have become a common river fish, and are esteemed the most delicate of the dishes brought to table.

Capt. Philibut carried the specimens of the gourami from Mauritius to Cayenne. Out of 100 taken on board he lost 23 on the passage. The French colonists feed and breed it in ponds, much as the Barbadians do the caffum (Megalops Atlanticus). The caffum is allied to the herring, and weighs 12 or 15 lbs.; and though an important stand-by for a dinner in Barbados, it is an inferior fish.

Twenty years ago, I well remember that Mr. Richard Hill called attention in Jamaica to the gourami, which was first then being introduced as a tank fish into Martinique and Guadaloupe. His communication appeared in Dr. Paul’s Physical Journal, published at Kingston.

It is supposed that this valuable fresh-water fish was procured originally from China, but not a single author gives intimation of it in the natural history of the Chinese empire. So interesting a species, among people so attentive to the breeding and cultivating whatever can be added to their food supplies, must have been brought under their notice. The Dutch have it only artificially bred in Java, but neither Renard, Valentine, Russell, nor Buchanan, who have all written largely on the fishes of India and of the Indian Islands, are acquainted with any such river-fish as the gourami. In India they give the name gouragi or koragi to a fish known to naturalists as the Ophicephalus, and the probability is that Commerson, who first noticed the Osphromenus olfax, had corruptly applied that word and made gourami of it.