PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
425 
PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS BY PICKLING. 
Pickling foods consists in their preservation and subsequent retention in some 
antiseptic flavoring solution, such as brine, vinegar, etc. Brine made of common salt 
is used almost exclusively in pickling fish, while for mollusks, crustaceans, and a few 
preparations of fish, vinegar with certain spices added is generally employed ; but 
pickling with vinegar is of small importance compared with brine-salting. 
A variety of flavoring solutions used for pickling in foreign countries are com- 
paratively unknown in the United States. In Japan small fish are frequently boiled 
and placed in slwyu or sq/Vq a sauce made from fermented wheat, beans, and salt. In 
the same country salmon, cuttlefish, etc., are frequently slightly salted and then boiled 
and placed in a tight package with rice partly fermented, the development of the 
ferment being checked by the removal of moisture. The rice, taking moisture from the 
fish, begins again to ferment and the fish imbibes products of the fermentation, such 
as dextrine, sugar, and alcohol, and is thereby very delicately flavored. 
A number of other antiseptics have been introduced for the purpose of preserving- 
food products, among which are boracic acid, salicylic acid, etc., but as these do not 
flavor the product, and as they are not generally employed as a solution, their use is 
not considered as pickling. A discussion of them is therefore reserved for the last 
chapter of this report, the present chapter dealing with methods of pickling with 
brine and vinegar, 
DEVELOPMENT AND METHODS OF BRINE-SALTING. 
The origin of pickling fish with salt is of somewhat uncertain date. It was known 
to the Plueniciaus on the Spanish coast, and was employed by the Greeks to some 
extent, and the Eomans carried it to a high degree of perfection, especially in preserv- 
ing swordfish from Sicily, tunny from Byzantium and Cadiz, mackerel from Spain, 
and mullet from Exone. Brine-salting received its' greatest development during the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at the hands of the Dutch in preserving herring- 
caught in the iSTorth Sea, and since that time it has become one of the most important 
methods of iireserving fish. Its principal application in the United States is in the 
preservation of mackerel, herring, alewives, salmon, mullet, cod, lake trout, whitefish, 
bluefish, shad, etc. It is also used in preserving certain miscellaneous products, as 
cod tongues, halibut fins, sturgeon eggs, mullet eggs, etc. 
The general method of brine-salting is to dress the fish and place them with salt 
in tight vats or barrels, the salt uniting with the moisture in the fish forming a pickle, 
in which they remain for a few days until cured, after which they are usually removed 
and placed in market packages with new brine. But there are many exceptions to 
this practice, depending on the species of fish and the markets for which they are 
intended. Some fish, sea herring and river herring, for instance, are usually not 
dressed at all, being brine-salted in the natural or round condition. Others are 
gibbed, or split to the vent and eviscerated. But most pickled fish are split either 
on the back or the belly from the head to the tail, so as to lay out flat; some have 
the heads removed, and a few have a large portion of the backbone cut out. 
