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Classic
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page 6
you have only to select the kind most agreeable to your palate and the season.
Shad, contrary to the generally received opinion are not so much richer
flavored, as they are harder when first taken out of the water; opinions vary
respecting them. I have tasted Shad thirty or forty miles from the place where
caught, and really conceived that they had a richness of flavor, which did not
appertain to those taken fresh and cooked immediately, and have proved both at
the same table, and the truth may rest here, that a Shad 36 or 48 hours out of
water, may not cook so hard and solid, and be esteemed so elegant, yet give a
higher relished flavor to the taste.
Every species generally of salt water Fish, are best fresh from the water,
though the Hannah Hill, Black Fish, Lobster, Oyster, Flounder, Bass, Cod,
Haddock, and Eel, with many others, may be transported by land many miles, find
a good market, and retain a good relish; but as generally, live ones are bought
first, deceits are used to give them a freshness of appearance, such as
pepperingthe gills, wetting the fins and tails, and even painting the gills, or
wetting with animal blood. Experience and attention will dictate the choice of
the best. Fresh gills, full bright eyes, moist fins and tails, denotes their
being fresh caught; if they are soft, it is certain they are stale, but if
deceits are used, your smell must approve or denounce them, and be your safest
guide.
Of all fresh water fish, there are none that require, or so well afford haste in
cookery, as the Salmon Trout, they are best when caught under a fall or cateract
- from what philosophical circumstance is yet unsettled, yet true it is, that at
the foot of a fall the waters are much colder than at the head; Trout choose
those waters; if taken
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