THE SALMON 



or flannel in several folds over it. Dish on a hot 

 fish plate under a napkin.' Mrs. Dodds remarks, 

 that it is difficult to estimate the boiling time, 

 nor can anything but sage experience be trusted. 

 Twelve minutes to the pound is a rough calculation. 

 Cre-fydd professes to be more exact. She says, ' A 

 slice weighing one pound will require a quarter of 

 an hour ; two pounds, twenty-three minutes, five 

 pounds for a very large thick fish, thirty minutes ; 

 the same weight for a small fish twenty-five minutes ; 

 four pounds of a split fish twenty minutes ; a whole 

 fish weighing seven to eight pounds, thirty minutes.' 

 These rules, on the other hand, are rather arbitrary, 

 and as Mrs. Dodds observes, it is experience that 

 does it. And when the salmon is sent up, the carving 

 must be carefully attended to, the thin slices which 

 have the more delicate lusciousness being duly ap- 

 portioned to the thicker. Lemons or thinly sliced 

 cucumbers may be the accompaniments ; personally, 

 we prefer to dispense with them. As we have said, 

 with a fresh-killed salmon it is sacrilege to serve any- 

 thing but the salted water in which it was boiled, 

 with perhaps a faint addition of Chili, enough to 

 elicit without deadening the characteristic flavour. 

 Christopher North never scandalised us more, though 

 the recent ' Annals of the Blackwoods ' show the 



