512 



U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



SALTED, SMOKED, AND DEHYDRATED FISH 



The earliest way, probably, in which foods were preserved for future 

 use by man was through the process of smoking. Later on the use 

 of salt was combined with the smoke as an added preservative. Being 

 essentially perishable and yet worthy of special effort in the matter 

 of preserving them for future use, prehistoric man gradually learned 

 to provide hunsolf with fish for the winter season of scarcity by means 

 of smoking, drjdng, or a combination of smoking and salting. We 

 knov/ that the Indians in the United vStates and Alaska used to go 

 long distances in order to capture and preserve fish for their winter 

 supply at a time when the fish were running in the rivers. Even 

 to-day the Indians in Alaska smoke and dry large quantities of salmon 

 to be used as food for themselves and their dogs during the winter, 

 when no other food is available. 



In our colonial times the people consumed considerable quantities 

 of salt codfish, salt salmon, herring, etc., which they sometimes pre- 

 pared themselves when the fish happened to run in their rivers, or 

 which were prepared at some central salting and drying place like 

 Gloucester, Mass. It was not a strange fancy that led the early 

 colonists to adopt the tradition of keeping the ''sacred codfish" in 

 the Massachusetts capitol building in Boston. In those days of hard- 

 ships, had it not been for the salt cod it would have been practically 

 impossible for the colonists to have maintained themselves on the 

 edge of a rather inhospitable country that they were beginning to 

 subdue to the purposes of. civilization. 



Unfortunately there is not very much data available on the com- 

 position and food value of salted and smoked fish. In Table 7 are 

 given data on some of the more common forms of salted and dehy- 

 drated fish. 



Table 7. — Composition of salted, svioked, pickled, and dehydrated Jish 



1 Salt included. 



' Contains 4.04 per cent of undetermined acids, sugar, etc. 



Of course, one of the outstanding features in the composition of 

 salted and smoked fish is naturally the elimination of water. Funda- 

 mentally the salting of fish or meat products results in the with- 

 drawal of water. In other words, whether the fish are dried natu- 

 rally or salted, the effect is the same; namely, to reduce the percent- 

 age of water to the point where bacteria and molds can not grow and 

 destroy these food products. Of course, smoking adds a sUght 

 amount of creosote and similar materials to the surface of these 

 products, which act as a sort of preservative and at the same time 

 give them their characteristic flavor. Because a considerable pro- 



