PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE PRESERVATION OF FISH 



BY SALT/ 



By Hakden F. Taylok, 

 Chief Technologist, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



Contribution from the Fishery Products Laboratory, Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



How salt preserves 2 



How salt extracts water 3 



Factors affecting permeability of fish 5 



Flavors of salt fish 8 



Dry salting and brine salting compared 9 



Loss by fish of nutrients in brine 11 



Influence of method of cleaning fish on salting 13 



Improved method of salting fish especially for warm weather 15 



Scotch-cured herring 16 



Mild-cured salmon 16 



Behavior of fat during salting process 16 



Reddening of cod and haddock 18 



Recovery of brine 19 



Accessory chemical agents and other factors in salting 20 



Conclusions 21 



Summary 21 



INTRODUCTION. 



The art of preserving fish by means of salt is of great antiquity. 

 It was practiced by the Phoenicians and Greeks and was brought to 

 a high degree of perfection by the Romans. Mixed with spices, salt 

 was used for the preservation of food on the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean and the outlying country in the time of Christ, reference being 

 made in the Sermon on the Mount to a salt which has lost its savor, 

 meaning a salt in which the spices have lost their aroma by evapora- 

 tion. In the centuries following the art continued, both in the Occi- 

 dent and the Orient, to play an important part in world economy. 

 Shakespeare put in the mouth of his most wonderful character, Fal- 

 staff, the words : " If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused 

 gurnet"- — a pickled gurnard, the gurnard being held in such light 

 esteem that it was a term of contempt. Whether " sousing " or pick- 

 ling made the fish doubly contemptible had better be left to the phi- 

 lologists to determine. Less than 25 years after Shakespeare wrote 

 that play the Plymouth Colony landed in America and brought with 



1 Appondix II to the Report of the IT. S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1922. B. F. 

 Doc. !»1<). 

 ' King Henry IV, pt. 1, Act IV, Scene II. 



