THE BASSES: FRESH-WATER AND MARINE 



some spot daily used by them, at which impromptu 

 tables, chairs of logs or old boxes, are to be found, 

 as well as a fireplace of stones ready for the wood 

 to be placed and lit. One guide shoulders a box 

 with all the necessary things, round frying-pan 

 without a handle, bread, butter, pickles, and crock- 

 ery. The meal is soon ready. These guides invari- 

 ably fry the fish. Yet, if you want, they will as 

 quickly bake it or boil it, in a primitive way. 

 They will take a good-sized bass, just out of the 

 water, without cleaning, wrap it up in wet paper, 

 and place it in the red-hot coals, testing it now and 

 then with a fork. When the fork goes through 

 easily the fish is cooked. Fifteen minutes is long 

 enough. They then carefully remove the fish from 

 the paper, leaving the skin adherent thereto, season 

 it with butter, salt, and pepper, and serve it. Some 

 Canadian guides provide parsley, flour, and eggs, 

 with which they make a tasty sauce. 



Fresh-water bass is unsuited for boiling. It 

 seems to lose its rich flavor, and does not compare 

 with other ways of cooking. Salt-water bass, on 

 the other hand, either striped, sea, or black bass, 

 are by far the finest dish if boiled. No salt-water 

 fish can compare with boiled bass either for richness 

 of taste or whiteness and firmness of flesh. It has 

 no peer at least in our waters. The small red 

 mullet caught around the coast of England has a 

 similar taste, but it is a rare and expensive fish, 



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