Dishes of Fish

As a nation, we have long been skilled in the curing of fish. White fish are apt to be insipid, but instead of sauces and seasonings, our fisherfolk rely mainly upon the use of the elements to give them goût.* Thus, after being slightly salted, they are variously ‘rizzared’, or sun-dried; ‘blawn’ or wind-blown—that is, hung up in the wind, but out of the sun, or in a passage with a current of air; rock-dried, being sprayed with sea-water during the process; or, as with skate, earth-dried—that is, left on the grass for a day or two with a grassy sod reversed on them. Sometimes, again, they receive a touch of the forest, being smoked over oak or silver birch sawdust, to which a few juniper twigs or pine cones may be added.