466 



METHODS OF PREPARATION OP FISH FOR THE MARKET. 



Fish are classified for the market as " hard " and " soft," the latter embracing 

 the miscellaneous coarse fish separately enumerated on p. 455. Some fish are 

 dressed ; catfish, e.g. which have been classified in the Report of the^U. S. Fish 

 Commission as the most important food-fish of Lake Ontario being always 

 decapitated, cleaned and skinned before being shipped. Again other fish are 

 shipped " round " without any preliminary cleaning. Various methods have 

 been suggested for arresting and preventing the decomposition which fish more 

 than all other classes of food materials so rapidly undergoes. 



These are reducible to two : the use of antiseptic chemicals and the use of 

 a low temperature. The former method has been chiefly adopted in Norway for 

 preserving herring and consists in laying the fish in a mixture of two parts of 

 salt and one of boracic acid (for a barrel of herring, 5 Ibs. salt, 2J Ibs. boracic 

 acid) and filling up with a weak solution of the acid. It is said to have the dis- 

 advantage of communicating a slight taste to the fish which injures their 

 market value. With an abundant ice-supply at command the second method 

 is preferable, and is sufficient if the fish are not already in bad order before 

 being preserved (p. 465). In the States large refrigerators are employed in 

 which fish may be frozen during any period of the year and preserved till 

 demand arises for them. Sturgeon may thus remain a year in the refrigerator, 

 being stacked there like cord wood. Trout are dressed before being frozen, but 

 pickerel are frozen " round." 



Whitefish are occasionally smoked in small quantities for local markets. 

 This is effected in small huts seven feet square, the fish being first cleaned, 

 then placed in brine for three to five hotfrs, impaled in strings of five on 

 sticks and hung up in the smoke of a hardwood fire, the door of the hut 

 being first left open for half-an-hour and then closed for three or four hours. 

 Substantially the same plan is used for kippering Herrings. After the fish 

 are split they are placed for thirty-five minutes in pickle, spitted on fine rods 

 carrying 12 to 20 herrings each and then smoked for five to six hours, the fuel 

 used being the waste sawdust from birch. If a strong colour is required they 

 are afterwards subjected to a shorter or longer exposure to the smoke of other 

 wood oak, e. g. 



A passing reference may be made to the ingenious conversion of Lake Erie 



herring by the use of a suitable stain into canned salmon, an industry which has 



headquarters in Cleveland. One of the methods of preserving whitefish 



mplpyed by the Indians of the North- West is not likely to be adopted generally 



it is worthy of being noted. The abundant fish caught in spring are dried, 



smoked pounded to powder and mixed into a cake with oil from the liver. This 



ary smoked fish furnishes an important element of food-supply. 



A l a f g m P 1 ro J )0rtio 1 I1 r? f the Stur g eon caught on the north shore of Lake Erie 



rH^l V ? Sandusky, where they are further prepared for the market 



for f y bein S ? onver / ed ln *o smoked Halibut), and where the roes are extracted 



int arL P1 ' eP ? i f CaViare " Alth S h the American demand for caviare is 



at yet large quantities are shipped to Germany, and it commands good 



130 tolToTs Pnoh Tr' 8 ^ T 4 T led al ne P ack3 75 ' 00 lbS ' in CaS ' S f 

 as much fhr ?* 6 .T^ od of P re Paration is as follows : A large fish yields 



ankch in Hi^ f * ^^ r 6 ' the e ^ s > which meas about Wninth of 



% roe prefeabt er ' T 7 "? ^ ^"^ fr m 800 ' 00 to 2 > 5 0,000. The asses 

 ferably not yet ripe and therefore hard, are taken quite fresh and 



