American Cookery

page 6

the liquor every day; when taken out to dry, smoke three weeks with cobs or malt
fumes. To every ham may be added a cheek, if you stoy away a barrel and not
alter the composition, some add a shoulder. For transportation or exportation,
double the period of smoking.

Fish, how to choose the best in market.

Salmon, the noblest and richest fish taken in fresh water--the largest are the
best. They are unlike almost every other fish, are ameliorated by being 3 or 4
days out of water, if kept from heat and the moon, which had much more injurious
effect than the sun.

In all great fish markets, great fish-mongers strictly examine the gills--if the
bright redness is exchanged for a low brown, they are stale; but when live fish
are brought flouncing into market, you have only to elect 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 fish taken out of 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, 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 peppering the
gills, wetting the fins

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