PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
437 
of lierriug. Francis Day, in liis well-known work on the Fishes of Great Britain and 
Ireland, parts v-ix, p. 223, writes as follows on this subject: 
At the beginning of the twelfth century there were herring fisheries in the Baltic, to which many 
foreign vessels resorted; these herring must, therefore, have been salted; in fact, in 1155 Louis VII, 
of France, prohibited his subjects purchasing anything hut mackerel and salted herrings at Estampes. 
The manner of curing these fish is considered to have been very crude until the 
time of William Beuckels, or Beuckelzon, a fish merchant of Biervliet, in Flanders, 
who, during the fourteenth century, greatly improved the methods in use and laid the 
foundation of the great wealth acquired later by Holland in this business. Beuckelzon 
died in 1397, and a monument was erected to his memory by Charles V in his native 
village, Borgo; while Mary of Hungary, during a visit to the Low Countries, is said 
to have paid a more characteristic tribute to his memory, namely, that of eating a salt 
herring at his tomb. 
The first mention we have of pickled herring in America is by Josselyn, in the 
seventeenth century, who, in his Chronological Observations of America, says: “We 
used to qualify a iiickled herring by boiling of him in milk.” It is almost self-evident, 
however, that the pickling of lierriug was carried on by tlie earliest settlers of America, 
and possibly by the fishermen who resorted to these shores from Europe before the 
country was settled, as it was an old-established business in Europe. 
The quantity of herring preserved by the process of pickling is greater than that 
of all other species combined, aggregating nearly 3,000,000 barrels annually, but the 
yield in the United States (about 30,000 barrels annually) is small compared with the 
product of Scotland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Half .a century ago the output 
in New England was many times greater than at present, and there was a considerable 
export trade, amounting at times to 60,000 barrels; but, owing to carelessness in the 
method of iiickliiig and absence of uniformity in the quality of the product and in 
weight of the packages, the trade has been captured by the foreign curers, avIio now 
sell about 150,000 barrels annually in the United States, at double the price received 
for the domestic article. In view of the large quantities of herring on the New 
England coast and the extensive markets that already exist in this country as well as 
in the adjacent countries to the south, it seems extremely desirable that more care 
should be given to the curing of this fish, and the preparation should be governed by 
fixed standards applicable to both quality and quantity. 
The quality of pickled herring varies greatly, depending almost entirely on the 
quality of the fresh fish and the promptness and care exercised in curing them. Few 
fish are more difficult to properly cure than this species; the flesh is very delicate and 
tender, and not only does it injure readily, but it is much less able to take the salt if 
the pickling be long delayed after removal from the water. If i)laced in iiickle 
before they have been much exposed, they take the salt quickly and the natural 
quality and flavor of the fish are better preserved. Another important rule in pre- 
paring this as well as other kinds of fish is to have the greatest possible cleanliness 
in the salting-houses and in the tubs and barrels used for salting. 
There is no uniform method of curing herring in this country, but most of them 
are salted just as removed from the water, without splitting or dressing, and are known 
as “round herring,” to distinguish them from the “gibbed herring,” which have the 
gills, heart, etc., removed, and the “split herring,” which have the gills and all viscera 
removed. The method of preparing each will be described separately. 
