Food For The Taking 



The dogfish, the sable, the goosefish, the 

 huge whale, the giant kelp — all are 



By A. M. 



ONE of the reasons why we suffer 

 from the high cost of living is 

 because we refuse to eat much of 

 the food which we have. 

 Millions of dollars' worth 

 of wholesome, fine- flavored 

 fish are thrown away each 

 year. And as for the 

 marine vegetables which 

 can be had for the taking 

 all along our shores — the 

 majority of our people do 

 not know that they exist. 



Take the case of the 

 goosefish, a food which 

 pound for pound equals 

 beef steak in protein (flesh- 

 building material). Only 

 seventy-five per cent of a 

 pound of sirloin is edible; 

 ninety per cent of the 

 goosefish is edible. Hence, 

 the goosefish equals the 

 steak in available protein 

 content. Yet we go on 

 blithely throwing away 

 ten million pounds a year 

 of this valuable food fish. 



The absurd part of this 

 startling extravagance is 

 that we reject the 

 goosefish simply be- 

 cause we do not ad- 

 mire its looks. 



It is so exten- 

 sively used in Ger- 

 many, where it ap- 

 pears under the 

 name of See-Teufel 

 (sea-devil), that the 

 catch on the North 

 Sea does not supply 

 the demand. Before 

 the war large quan- 

 tities of this fish 

 were imported into 

 Germany from 

 Great Britain. The 

 Scotch and English 

 fishermen found the 

 goosefish very 



The Greedy Goosefish Is Good 

 to Eat 



The goosefish averages about three feet in 

 length. It is not unusual, however, to find 

 larger fish. The broad body and large 

 head surmounted by a tuft which acts as a 

 lure for its prey, the enormous mouth with 

 its double row of strong teeth all tend to 

 make its appearance repulsive. It eats 

 any living creature it can overcome. 

 Fishes, lobsters, squids, crabs — even water- 

 fowl, such as ducks and geese, are all on the 

 goosefish's bill-of-fare. To eat "like a 

 horse" is a common expression, but to eat 

 like a goosefish would better express the 

 idea of a huge appetite, because the weight 

 of a single meal of a goosefish will be 

 half as much as the weight of the fish itself 



Kanten Is Made in Japan from Seaweeds 



It is a sort of isinglass. It is thoroughly white, semi- 

 transparent and shiny. It is extensively used for food 

 in the form of jellies, candies, pastries and for anything 

 which is prepared with gelatine. It is much superior to 

 the common animal isinglass. Late statistics of the 

 production of "kanten" are not available, but in 

 1902 three million pounds were made with a valu- 

 ation of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars 



374 



valuable sea foods that we throw away. 

 Eat them and reduce the cost of living 



Jungmann 



profitable. Figures gathered just be- 

 fore the war show that they annually 

 sold over five million seven hundred 



thousand pounds of this 



fish. 



The Mystery of the 

 Tile Fish 



Another fish which has 

 never attained the popu- 

 larity it deserves is the 

 tilefish. It is the center of 

 one of the most baffling 

 marine mysteries. Noth- 

 ing about this fish had 

 ever been recorded until 

 1879, when a schooner 

 fishing off Nantucket 

 caught several thousand 

 pounds of this large and 

 beautiful fish. The cap- 

 tain of the schooner was 

 sufficiently interested to 

 send one of the fish to the 

 United States Fish Com- 

 mission Where it was found 

 to be new. 



Efforts were made at 

 once to establish a fishery, 

 but before anything defi- 

 nite could be done 

 the tilefish were all 

 mysteriously killed 

 in March, 1882. 

 The first news of the 

 tragedy was brought 

 in by a skipper who 

 said he had sailed 

 for fifteen miles 

 through a mass of 

 dead and dying fish 

 which were floating 

 on the surface of the 

 water. The disas- 

 ter was investigated 

 by the United States 

 Fish Commission 

 and it was estimated 

 that the dead fish 

 covered an area one 

 hundred and seventy 



