THE PIG 327 



hung in the first room on poles or iron hooks, the me- 

 dium-sized pieces are hung in the second, and the 

 smallest are relegated to the last room. The smoke, 

 on account of the comparative remoteness of the fire- 

 place, is cold when it reaches the first compartment, 

 where it acts with full force on the large pieces of 

 meat, the hardest to penetrate. Thence it passes to 

 the second compartment, and finally to the third, 

 thus in proportion to its loss of strength encounter- 

 ing pieces less resistant to its action. As food, 

 smoked meat is preferable to salted : it tastes better 

 and is easier to digest. 



" Smoking is also applied to fish. You have a 

 well-known example in the herring. This fish, as 

 it comes from the grocer, is sometimes silvery white, 

 sometimes golden red. In the first state he calls it 

 white herring; in the second, red herring. The dif- 

 ference is in the way it is cured. Directly after be- 

 ing caught, the herrings are opened, cleaned, washed, 

 and put to soak in brine, that is to say in a strong so- 

 lution of salt. About fifteen hours later they are 

 taken out, put to drip, and finally packed in casks in 

 regular layers. The product of this process is the 

 white herring, so named because the fish, simply 

 salted and put up in casks, keeps its beautiful silvery 

 color. Smoking produces the so-called red herring, 

 recognizable from its golden-yellow tint and smoky 

 smell. The fresh fish are first of all strongly salted 

 by being left thirty hours in the brine ; then they are 

 attached to small twigs or branches passed through 

 the gills, after which they are hung in a sort of fire- 



