Fearing. — An Angling Library 67 



not to mention all fish and shell fish. One author, a 

 Frenchman, describes 150 different methods of serving 

 the sardine. Another, an American lady, has written 

 five hundred pages on "how to cook fish," in which she 

 gives "ninety-five ways to cook shad" alone. Two 

 separate American authors or compilers have given us, 

 "One hundred ways to prepare oysters." The lady men- 

 tioned above also wrote a book entitled, "How to cook 

 shell fish," in which she gives "215 ways to cook oysters," 

 "130 ways to cook clams," "175 ways to cook lobsters," 

 "85 ways to cook crabs," 40 ways to cook shrimps," be- 

 sides numerous other shell fish. This author at the end 

 of 303 pages of recipes for cooking shell fish, says in a 

 note: "P. S. This is all we know about shell fish. If 

 we should ever learn any more, it will appear in another 

 book." There are over 100 books in the library on fish 

 cookery, the oldest being a very scarce edition of "De 

 Honesta Voluptate" published in Bologna in 1499 which 

 contains 13 pages on the "Cookery of Fish." The owner 

 has made a collection of scrap books, now numbering 

 over fifty, a single volume containing recipes for cook- 

 ing one kind of fish. The volume on trout has been ex- 

 tended to two and contains over 300 different ways of 

 serving trout, and is by no means finished yet ! 



Among these books on fish cookery in English, French, 

 German and Italian, is one small curious volume en- 

 titled, "Fish for Cats, by Dog," It was published with- 

 out place or date and is a collection of recipes from old 

 cook books. The author, under the pseudonym of "Dog," 

 says that he wishes to "alleviate, in the smallest meas- 

 ures, the agonies of Lent in 1868." 



Perhaps a quotation from the introduction to "A 

 Handbook of Fish Cookery," by Lucy H. Yates, London, 

 1897, may fitly end these remarks on fish cook books. 

 "Ignorance * * * will generally be found to be the 

 cause of the aversion which many housewives have to 

 the cooking of fish * * * the poorer classes still 

 regard fish as 'nothing to make a meal of * * * 

 and many people who would really enjoy eating it are 



