124 FISH CULTURE. 



being laid on them while hot. Even chub can be 

 eaten in this way, but any fish of above half a pound 

 should be crimped. Barbel are liked well enough by 

 some people, but the fish should be split down the 

 back, and the backbone should be taken out before 

 it is broiled. Indeed, few of these fish are really 

 thrown away, for they form acceptable articles of 

 food amongst the poorer classes, while the Jews at 

 their various fasts employ them largely ; so much so, 

 that I have known sixteen shillings per hundred 

 paid for average-sized dace. The Jews, however, as 

 it is well known, are adepts in cooking fish, and we 

 might take a useful lesson from them in this respect. 

 Everything, however, depends as regards their tooth- 

 someness upon the cooking. Perhaps jack and tench 

 are the only two which are ever now subjected to 

 plain boiling; but even with jack, veal stuffing is 

 used to give flavour to the dish. Some people think 

 well and some highly of jack, and formerly it was in 

 greater request than even salmon, and it was con- 

 sidered a great delicacy ; I cannot, of course, coincide 

 in any such verdict. I have, however, eaten jack 

 when it formed one of the components (scarcely an 

 indispensable one though) of a very excellent dish, 

 in which also were sauces and spices, wine gravy and 

 stuffing, but the game was hardly worth the candle. 



