Buying Fish

There is no better lesson on how to choose fish than this if it is possible in your own neighborhood, or while vacationing in summer, go to see a fishing boat empty its gleaming cargo on the wharf and make an individual study of that cargo. Learn to know the earmarks not only those called St. Peter's on a haddock, but the signs of perfect freshness on all fish.

Do not be afraid of touching them fresh smelts have the fragrance of violets, and every fish has a wholesome' smell. Turn them over, examine them closely. "An eye like a dead fish" refers to a fish which has lain for weeks in cold storage, not to one just from the water. It will have eyes as full and almost as clear as any living creature.

Notice the gills they will be beautifully red, the fins will be stiff, the scales shining, and the flesh so firm that it springs right back after the finger has been pressed into it. One can not expect, especially if one's home is some distance from the ocean or the great lakes, to find in market fish as superlatively fresh as when lifted straight from the net. Still, to be fit for human food they should not have lost much of their beauty.

The signs to avoid are limp fins, dull eyes, pale, livercolored gills, flesh in which you leave a dent by an impression of the finger, streaks of gray or yellow in the skin and flesh, and the slightest symptom of a disagreeable odor.

If you have to make the choice between salt pork and a fish of this description, choose salt pork it is infinitely more healthful it does not contain a possibility of poisoning. When purchasing halibut or swordfish, where the head and fins have been removed, the test is pearly white or shining gray skin, firm flesh, and a good odor.

It is an excellent rule never to buy fish which is out of season. If you want bluefish in February or shad in November, you can probably obtain it a fish dealer will produce almost anything from his refrigerator at any time of the year but you may rest assured it has known a repose of months in cold storage. If not really dangerous to eat, it will be flabby, it will go to pieces before it is cooked and be lacking in flavor. It is an excellent plan to post one's self thoroughly on the fish which is in season all the year round, and purchase that according to the month.

A dealer will assure you that fish which has been packed in ice ten days is in as excellent condition as when fresh caught. I should say seven or eight days is the limit. After that time it will begin to lose its beautiful motherofpearl sheen.

Although the old theory that fish is brain food has been exploded, the brainworker will find what he most requires in a bountiful diet of fish. It is digestible food which is not overstimulating or overnutritive. Both the poet and the preacher will do better work on a dinner of broiled bluefish than on rare roast beef.

Salmon, mackerel which are exceedingly oily, are an exception to the digestible rule. They should be severely let alone by people of weak stomachs, while whitefish may be classed as the most digestible of all fish.

The shimmering array on a market stall is alluring and confusing, and the fish dealer is apt to be persuasive. It is no economy to be inveigled into buying a fivepound bluefish when two pounds of halibut would have fed your family. Fish left over can be utilized nicely in many ways, as the following pages will show, but it is better not to have any in summer, cold fish has not remarkable keeping qualities.

Decide when you order a fish how you will cook it. The fish dealer can prepare it for planking or broiling better than you can. The cheapest fish is not always the most economical. Five pounds of cod will contain about two pounds of waste in the shape of skin, head, tail, and bone, while two pounds of halibut is solid fish with scarcely an ounce of waste.

Cooking

The cooking of fish depends very largely on taste, for various methods apply frequently and most appetizingly to the same fish. Take halibut, for instance. It may be baked, broiled, fried or boiled, and be quite as delicious in one way as another. This rule is also true of cod, haddock, and nearly every kind of whitefleshed fish.

What a cook or a fish dealer calls dark fish this class contains bluefish, mackerel, herring, salmon, eels, and shad are best suited for broiling, baking, or planking. They contain so much oil distributed through the flesh that it requires a dry, intense heat to make them palatable. Salmon is an exception to this rule, being at its best when boiled. An old saying declares, "Small fish should swim twice once in water, once in oil." It is a good proverb for the cook to remember, because it applies well to every tiny fish.

Smelts, brook trout, perch, whitebait, catfish, sunfish, bullheads, and everything in small finny things, partly for the preservation of the small amount of meat on their bones, should be carefully stripped, cleaned, egged, crumbed, and fried. Sometimes these small fish are sauted, but they are not so good nor so wholesome as when they "swim in oil."

Baking

When baking halibut pour milk over and around it before setting it in the oven. It keeps the fish moist, improves the flavor, and makes it brown more thoroughly.