FISH FOODS. 287 
larger one, to warning all and sundry to prepare themselves 
betimes for a future state, this board standing in suggestive 
proximity to a festoon of the highly questionable carcases of 
tenpenny rabbits.” 
Mackerel, when a big haul has been made on the coast, finds 
its way abundantly into the cheap markets on hucksters’ stalls 
for the poor. In former times, because of its perishable nature, 
it was allowed to be sold on a Sunday. Gay notes, “ Ev’n 
Sundays are prophaned by Mackrell cries.” This fish furnishes 
nearly 3 per cent of xanthin, or uric acid. 
“ But flounders, sprats and cucumbers yere cry’d, 
And every voice, and every sound were try’d. 
At last the law this hideous din supprest, 
And ordered that the Sunday should have rest, 
And that no nymph the noisy food should sell 
Except it were new milk, or mackerel. 
Hence mack’rel seem delightful to the eyes, 
Tho’ drest with incoherent gooseberries.” 
Art of Cookery. 
The Mackerel is from Maculellus, spotted, of the Scombride, 
because of their brilliant prismatic coats. 
The Turbot (Psella maxima) is called after “ a top,” being also 
the Water-pheasant (with a flavour of its flesh, like that of the 
game bird), and the “ Cannock fluke.” The Greeks and Latins 
named it “‘ Rombus, the lozenge, which beareth justly that figure.” 
It is the largest flat fish of European waters except the halibut. 
For invalids fond of Lobster, but who may not eat this, a salad 
thereof may be well imitated by cutting strips of cold boiled 
Turbot, and colouring them outside with beetroot juice, or by 
substituting cold Turbot, with pepper, and vinegar. “If you 
would live long”—says a trite adage— avoid controversy, 
lobster salad, and quarrelsome folk.” 
The Salmon (Salmo, king of fish) is red-fleshed, and contains 
much fat, which is interspersed amongst the muscular fibres, 
and is accumulated under the skin. This fish is at its best just 
before spawning ; on returning afterwards to the sea it is thin, 
and wasted. “ Daintie, and wholesome is the Salmon,” wrote 
Fuller, “and a double riddle in nature: First, for its invisible 
feeding, no man alive having ever found any meat in the maw 
thereof; secondly, for its strange leaping, or flying rather, so 
that some will have them termed Salmons, a saliendo.” The 
fish is not named a Salmon before it attains the age of six years ; 
