NO. 2 (1921) REMARKS ON CANNING 81 



fairly firm so that it can be handled and packed without breaking ; 

 while a can of mushy fish is objectionable being liable to be 

 thought decomposed, a can of over-dried fish is liable to rejection 

 as hard and tasteless. 



94. (4) Frying. — This operation, mostly confined to sardines 

 though occasionally adopted for mackerel, tunny, etc., is an import- 

 ant and delicate one. The objects of frying are — 



(1) to ' firm ' the fish by driving off the interior moisture from 

 within the tissues (the air drying is mostly to drive off exterior 

 moisture) so that the fish may not only be readily handled and 

 closely packed without breakage but will not be reduced to mere 

 mushy fragments by the subsequent processing and transport to 

 consumer ; 



(2) to sterilise the fish by a pre-cooking so as to arrest any 

 chance of taint during the subsequent operations prior to final 

 sterilisation by processing in the sealed can ; 



(3) to flavour and enrich the fish by contact with the hot 

 frying oil ; 



(4) it may be added as a consequent of this pre-cooking and 

 sterilisation, that many fish can be packed (and covered with oil) 

 and then, if time does not permit of the cans being at once closed 

 and processed as is ordinarily desirable, may be quite safely left 

 till next morning for these final operations. 



95. It is obvious that the nature of the oil used for frying and 

 the method are of great importance ; in domestic cookery delicate 

 frying is considered the mark of a skilful cook ; in industrial frying 

 it is not less so. Yet it is not uncommon for this operation to be 

 relegated to an ignorant workman who can spoil whole batches by 

 bad frying. If the oil is fresh, clean, of high quality, of pleasant 

 flavour, and uninjured in flavour and colour by any scorching of the 

 oil or debris from the fish, of sufficient quantity and temperature 

 (about 300° F.), the results should be good, but a careless cook or 

 superintendent may allow the oil which necessarily becomes 

 gradually unfit for frying, to pass the stage of fitness, in which case 

 the fish are apt to taste of the scorched oil or be discoloured by the 

 brownish oil or by over-frying. Moreover, he can easily hasten the 

 scorching by inattention to the source of heat ; an open fire or 

 powerful kerosene stove can readily scorch successive portions of 

 the oil so that the oil is rapidly spoilt. On the other hand the 

 workman may change the oil too frequently and thus cause undue 



