No. 2 (1921) REMARKS ON CANNING 1 29 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Fish Pastes. 



201. These are deserving of great attention ; they are abundantly 

 packed all over the world, but in India no such product was canned 

 until the Government Cannery took up the matter in 1912. In many 

 countries these pastes are economically and rightly made, at least 

 partly, of what would otherwise be wasted, being such portions of 

 fish as cannot be utilized in ordinary canning ; but in many cases 

 even these by-products are adulterated with material which, like 

 bread crumb, may be perfectly edible but is not fish. Hence the 

 cheapness of some of these products ; it is hardly possible otherwise 

 to manufacture small solderless cans saleable retail at one penny 

 and wholesale at three farthings ; it has been said that three- 

 quarters of the contents of some tins of fish paste are other than fish. 

 A recipe for 'anchovy' paste was obtained by the writer and is 

 practically repeated in a text-book, in which the basis of the paste 

 is plain herring with fat, boiled rice, salt, red colouring matter, 

 and a bottle of anchovy sauce or essence; the recipe naively adds 

 " It is of course possible to make this paste with real anchovies 

 but this would be too expensive." But this can be more than 

 paralleled by commercial recipes in other lines. In this Presi- 

 dency the pastes made at the Government Cannery are absolutely 

 pure, containing only sound fish cured or treated for paste 

 purposes, not mere fragments from ordinary canning w^hich 

 indeed are scarce, since large fish, which chiefly supply fragments 

 and debris, are not greatly used at the cannery. Moreover the 

 fish used for paste are usually cheap enough to provide cheap 

 pastes of the highest quality. The prawn paste is made solely of 

 the freshest and best prawns ; mackerel paste is made from 

 mackerel cured and smoked for the purpose. Of course various 

 ingredients are added as will be seen from the recipes below, in 

 order to make the fish into a viscid, well-flavoured paste ; these are 

 not adulterations but necessary additions, such as butter, oil, 

 spices, etc 



202. Before giving recipes as used in the Government Cannery 

 or found — ^very rarely — in the text-books, it should be mentioned 

 that fish pastes have not yet been sufficiently dealt with in India, 



