FISHES AS FOOD FOR MAN
=The Flesh of Fishes.=--Among all races of men, fishes are freely eaten
as food, either raw, as preferred by the Japanese and Hawaiians, or
else as cooked, salted, dried, or otherwise preserved.
The flesh of most fishes is white, flaky, readily digestible, and with
an agreeable flavor. Some, as the salmon, are charged with oil, which
aids to give an orange hue known as salmon color. Others have colorless
oil which may be of various consistencies. Some have dark-red flesh,
which usually contains a heavy oil which becomes acrid when stale.
Some fishes, as the sharks, have tough, coarse flesh. Some have flesh
which is watery and coarse. Some are watery and tasteless, some dry and
tasteless. Some, otherwise excellent, have the muscular area, which
constitutes the chief edible part of the fish, filled with small bones.
=Relative Rank of Food-fishes.=--The writer has tested most of the
noted food-fishes of the Northern Hemisphere. When properly cooked (for
he is no judge of raw fish) he would place first in the ranks as a
food-fish the eulachon, or candle-fish (_Thaleichthys pacificus_).
[Illustration: FIG. 194.--Eulachon, or Ulchen. _Thaleichthys pretiosus_
Girard. Columbia River. Family _Argentinidæ_.]
This little smelt, about a foot long, ascends the Columbia River,
Frazer River, and streams of southern Alaska in the spring in great
numbers for the purpose of spawning. Its flesh is white, very delicate,
charged with a white and very agreeable oil, readily digested, and with
a sort of fragrance peculiar to the species.
[Illustration: FIG. 195.--Ayu, or Japanese Samlet, _Plecoglossus
altivelis_ Schlegel. Tanagawa, Tokyo, Japan.]
Next to this he is inclined to place the ayu (_Plecoglossus
altivelis_), a sort of dwarf salmon which runs in similar fashion in
the rivers of Japan and Formosa. The ayu is about as large as the
eulachon and has similar flesh, but with little oil and no fragrance.
[Illustration: FIG. 196.--Whitefish, _Coregonus clupeiformis_ Mitchill.
Ecorse, Mich.]
Very near the first among sea-fishes must come the pampano
(_Trachinotus carolinus_) of the Gulf of Mexico, with firm, white,
finely flavored flesh.
The red surmullet of Europe (_Mullus barbatus_) has been long famed for
its delicate flesh, and may perhaps be placed next. Two related species
in Polynesia, the munu and the kumu (_Pseudupeneus bifasciatus_ and
_Pseudupeneus porphyreus_), are scarcely inferior to it.
[Illustration: FIG. 197.--Golden Surmullet, _Mullus auratus_ Jordan &
Gilbert. Woods Hole, Mass.]
[Illustration: FIG. 198.--Spanish Mackerel, _Scomberomorus maculatus_
Mitchill. Family _Scombridæ_. Key West.]
Side by side with these belongs the whitefish of the Great Lakes
(_Coregonus clupeiformis_). Its flesh, delicate, slightly gelatinous,
moderately oily, is extremely agreeable. Sir John Richardson records
the fact that one can eat the flesh of this fish longer than any other
without the feeling of cloying. The salmon cannot be placed in the
front ranks because, however excellent, the stomach soon becomes tired
of it. The Spanish mackerel (_Scomberomorus maculatus_), with flesh
at once rich and delicate, the great opah (_Lampris luna_), still
richer and still more delicate, the bluefish (_Pomatomus saltatrix_)
similar but a little coarser, the ulua (_Carangus sem_), the finest
large food-fish of the South Seas, the dainty California poppy-fish,
miscalled "Pampano" (_Palometa simillima_), and the kingfish firm and
well-flavored (_Scomberomorus cavalla_), represent the best of the
fishes allied to the mackerel.
[Illustration: FIG. 199.--Opah, or Moonfish, _Lampris luna_ (Gmelin).
Specimen in Honolulu market weighing 317-1/2 lbs. (Photograph by E. L.
Berndt.)--Page 323.]
[Illustration: FIG. 200.--Bluefish, _Pomatomus saltatrix_ (L.). New
York.]
[Illustration: FIG. 201.--Robalo, _Centropomus undecimalis_ (Bloch).
Florida.]
The shad (_Alosa sapidissima_), with its sweet, tender, finely oily
flesh, stands also near the front among food-fishes, but it sins above
all others in the matter of small bones. The weak-fish (_Cynoscion
nobilis_) and numerous relatives rank first among those with tender,
white, savorous flesh. Among the bass and perch-like fishes, common
consent places near the first the striped bass (_Roccus lineatus_),
the bass of Europe (_Dicentrarchus labrax_), the susuki of Japan
(_Lateolabrax japonicus_), the red tai of Japan (_Pagrus major_ and _P.
cardinalis_), the sheep's-head (_Archosargus probatocephalus_), the
mutton-fish or Pargo Criollo of Cuba (_Lutianus analis_), the European
porgy (_Pagrus pagrus_), the robalo (_Centropomus undecimalis_), the
uku (_Aprion virescens_) of Hawaii, the spadefish (_Chætodipterus
faber_), and the black bass (_Micropterus dolomieu_).
[Illustration: FIG. 202.--Spadefish, _Chætodipterus faber_ (L.).
Virginia.]
[Illustration: FIG. 203.--Small-mouthed Black Bass, _Micropterus
dolomieu_ (Lacépède). Potomac River.]
[Illustration: FIG. 204.--Speckled Trout (male), _Salvelinus
fontinalis_ (Mitchill). New York.]
[Illustration: FIG. 205.--Rainbow Trout, _Salmo irideus_ Gibbons.
Sacramento River, California.]
[Illustration: FIG. 206.--Rangeley Trout, _Salvelinus oquassa_
(Girard). Lake Oquassa, Maine.]
The various kinds of trout have been made famous the world over. All
are attractive in form and color; all are gamey; all have the most
charming of scenic surroundings, and, finally, all are excellent as
food, not in the first rank perhaps, but well above the second. Notable
among these are the European charr (_Salvelinus alpinus_), the American
speckled trout or charr (_Salvelinus fontinalis_), the Dolly Varden
or malma (_Salvelinus malma_), and the oquassa trout (_Salvelinus
oquassa_). Scarcely less attractive are the true trout, the brown
trout, or forelle (_Salmo fario_), in Europe, the rainbow-trout (_Salmo
irideus_), the steelhead (_Salmo gairdneri_), the cut-throat trout
(_Salmo clarkii_), and the Tahoe trout (_Salmo henshawi_), in America,
and the yamabe (_Salmo perryi_) of Japan. Not least of all these is the
flower of fishes, the grayling (_Thymallus_), of different species in
different parts of the world.
[Illustration: FIG. 207.--Steelhead Trout, _Salmo gairdneri_
Richardson. Columbia River.]
[Illustration: FIG. 208.--Tahoe Trout, _Salmo henshawi_ Gill & Jordan.
Lake Tahoe, California.]
[Illustration: FIG. 209.--The Dolly Varden Trout, _Salvelinus malma_
(Walbaum). Lake Pend d'Oreille, Idaho. (After Evermann.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 210.--Alaska Grayling, _Thymallus signifer_
Richardson. Nulato, Alaska.]
[Illustration: FIG. 211.--Pike, _Esox lucius_ L. Ecorse, Mich.]
[Illustration: FIG. 212.--Atka-fish, _Pleurogrammus monopterygius_
(Pallas). Atka Island.]
Other most excellent food-fishes are the eel (_Anguilla_ species),
the pike (_Esox lucius_), the muskallonge (_Esox Roccus_), the sole
of Europe (_Solea solea_), the sardine (_Sardinella pilchardus_), the
atka-fish (_Pleurogrammus monopterygius_) of Bering Sea, the pescado
blanco of Lake Chapala (_Chirostoma estor_ and other species), the
Hawaiian mullet (_Mugil cephalus_), the channel catfish (_Ictalurus
punctatus_), the turbot (_Scophthalmus maximus_), the barracuda
(_Sphyræna_), and the young of various sardines and herring, known
as whitebait. Of large fishes, probably the swordfish (_Xiphias
gladius_), the halibut (_Hippoglossus hippoglossus_), and the
king-salmon, or quinnat (_Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_), may be placed
first. Those people who feed on raw fish prefer in general the large
parrot-fishes (as _Pseudoscarus jordani_ in Hawaii), or else the young
of mullet and similar species.
[Illustration: FIG. 213.--Pescado blanco, _Chirostoma humboldtianum_
(Val.). Lake Chalco, City of Mexico.]
[Illustration: FIG. 214.--Red Goatfish, or Salmonete, _Pseudupeneus
maculatus_ Bloch. Family _Mullidæ_ (Surmullets).]
=Abundance of Food-fishes.=--In general, the economical value of any
species depends not on its toothsomeness, but on its abundance and
the ease with which it may be caught and preserved. It is said that
more individuals of the herring (_Clupea harengus_ in the Atlantic,
_Clupea pallasi_ in the Pacific) exist than of any other species. The
herring is a good food-fish and whenever it runs it is freely sought.
According to Björnsön, wherever the school of herring touches the coast
of Norway, there a village springs up, and this is true in Scotland,
Newfoundland, and from Killisnoo in Alaska to Otaru in Japan, and to
Strielok in Siberia. Goode estimates the herring product of the North
Atlantic at 1,500,000,000 pounds annually. In 1881 Professor Huxley
used these words:
[Illustration: FIG. 215.--Great Parrot-fish, or Guacamaia,
_Pseudoscarus guacamaia_ Bloch & Schneider. Florida.]
[Illustration: FIG. 216.--Striped Mullet, _Mugil cephalus_ (L.). Woods
Hole, Mass.]
"It is said that 2,500,000,000 or thereabout of herrings are every
year taken out of the North Sea and the Atlantic. Suppose we assume
the number to be 3,000,000,000 so as to be quite safe. It is a large
number undoubtedly, but what does it come to? Not more than that of the
herrings which may be contained in one shoal, if it covers half a dozen
square miles, and shoals of much larger size are on record. It is safe
to say that scattered through the North Sea and the Atlantic, at one
and the same time, there must be scores of shoals, any one of which
would go a long way toward supplying the whole of man's consumption of
herrings."
[Illustration: FIG. 217.--Mutton-snapper, or Pargo criollo, _Lutianus
analis_ (Cuv. & Val.). Key West.]
[Illustration: FIG. 218.--Herring, _Clupea harengus_ L. New York.]
[Illustration: FIG. 219.--Codfish, _Gadus callarias_ L. Eastport,
Maine.]
The codfish (_Gadus callarias_ in the Atlantic; _Gadus macrocephalus_
in the Pacific) likewise swarms in all the northern seas, takes the
hook readily, and is better food when salted and dried than it is when
fresh.
Next in economic importance probably stands the mackerel of the
Atlantic (_Scomber scombrus_), a rich, oily fish which bears salting
better than most.
[Illustration: FIG. 220.--Mackerel, _Scomber scombrus_ L. New York.]
Not less important is the great king-salmon, or quinnat (_Oncorhyanchus
tschawytscha_), and the still more valuable blue-back salmon, or
redfish (_Oncorhynchus nerka_).
[Illustration: FIG. 221.--Halibut, _Hippoglossus hippoglossus_
(Linnæus). St. Paul Island, Bering Sea. (Photograph by U. S. Fur Seal
Commission.)]
The salmon of the Atlantic (_Salmo salar_), the various species of
sturgeon (_Acipenser_), the sardines (_Sardinella_), the halibut
(_Hippoglossus_), are also food-fishes of great importance.
=Variety of Tropical Fishes.=--In the tropics no one species is
represented by enormous numbers of individuals as is the case in
colder regions. On the other hand, the number of species regarded as
food-fishes is much greater in any given port. In Havana, about 350
different species are sold as food in the markets, and an equal number
are found in Honolulu. Upward of 600 different species appear in the
markets of Japan. In England, on the contrary, about 50 species make up
the list of fishes commonly used as food. Yet the number of individual
fishes is probably not greater about Japan or Hawaii than in a similar
stretch of British coast.
=Economic Fisheries.=--Volumes have been written on the economic value
of the different species of fishes, and it is not the purpose of the
present work to summarize their contents.
[Illustration: FIG. 222.--Fishing for Ayu with Cormorants in the
Tanagawa, near Tokyo. (After Photograph by J. O. Snyder by Sekko
Shimada.)]
Equally voluminous is the literature on the subject of catching fishes.
It ranges in quality from the quaint wisdom of the "Compleat Angler"
and the delicate wit of "Little Rivers" to elaborate discussions of the
most economic and effective forms and methods, of the beam-trawl, the
purse-seine, and the codfish hook. In general, fishes are caught in
four ways--by baited hooks, by spears, by traps, and by nets. Special
local methods, such as the use of the tamed cormorant[146] in the
catching of the ayu, by the Japanese fishermen at Gifu, may be set
aside for the moment, and all general methods of fishing come under
one of these four classes. Of these methods, the hook, the spear, the
seine, the beam-trawl, the gill-net, the purse-net, the sweep-net, the
trap and the weir are the most important. The use of the hook is again
extremely varied. In the deep sea long, sunken lines, are sometimes
used for codfish, each baited with many hooks. For pelagic fish, a
baited hook is drawn swiftly over the surface, with a "spoon" attached
which looks like a living fish. In the rivers a line is attached to a
pole, and when fish are caught for pleasure or for the joy of being
in the woods, recreation rises to the dignity of angling. Angling may
be accomplished with a hook baited with an earthworm, a grasshopper,
a living fish, or the larva of some insect. The angler of to-day,
however, prefers the artificial fly, as being more workmanlike and also
more effective than bait-fishing. The man who fishes, not for the good
company of the woods and brooks, but to get as many fish as possible
to eat or sell, is not an angler but a pot-fisher. The man who kills
all the trout he can, to boast of his skill or fortune, is technically
known as a trout-hog. Ethically, it is better to lie about your great
catches of fine fishes than to make them. For most anglers, also, it is
more easy.
=Fisheries.=--With the multiplicity of apparatus for fishing, there is
the greatest variety in the boats which may be used. The fishing-fleet
of any port of the world is a most interesting object, as are also the
fishermen with their quaint garb, plain speech, and their strange songs
and calls with the hauling in of the net.
[Illustration: FIG. 223.--Fishing for Ayu in the Tanagawa, Japan.
Emptying the pouch of the cormorant. (Photograph by J. O. Snyder.)]
For much information on the fishing apparatus in use in America the
reader is referred to the Reports of the Fisheries in the Tenth
Census, in 1880, under the editorship of Dr. George Brown Goode. In
these reports Goode, Stearns, Earle, Gilbert, Bean, and the present
writer have treated very fully of all economic relations of the
American fishes. In an admirable work entitled "American Fishes,"
Dr. Goode, with the fine literary touch of which he was master,
has fully discoursed of the game- and food-fishes of America with
especial reference to the habits and methods of capture of each. To
these sources, to Jordan and Evermann's "Food and Game Fishes of North
America," and to many other works of similar purport in other lands,
the reader is referred for an account of the economic and the human
side of fish and fisheries.
=Angling.=--It is no part of the purpose of this work to describe the
methods or materials of angling, still less to sing its praises as a
means of physical or moral regeneration. We may perhaps find room for
a first and a last word on the subject; the one the classic from the
pen of the angler of the brooks of Staffordshire, and the other the
fresh expression of a Stanford student setting out for streams such as
Walton never knew, the Purissima, the Stanislaus, or perchance his home
streams, the Provo or the Bear.
"And let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying
night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the
owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know
we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares
under this sycamore as Virgil's Tityrus and his Meliboeus did under
their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar,--no life so happy
and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the
lawyer is swallowed up with business and the statesman is preventing
or contriving plots, then we sit on the cowslip-banks, hear the birds
sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver
streams which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good
scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries,
'Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never
did'; and so, if I might be judge, 'God never made a more calm, quiet,
innocent recreation than angling.'
"I'll tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose-bank, and
looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did
of Florence, 'That they were too pleasant to be looked on but only on
holidays.'
"Gentle Izaak! He has been dead these many years, but his disciples are
still faithful. When the cares of business lie heavy and the sound of
wheels jarring on cobbled streets grows painful, one's fingers itch for
the rod; one would away to the quiet brook among the pines, where one
has fished so often. Every man who has ever got the love of the stream
in his blood feels often this longing.
"It comes to me each year with the first breath of spring. There is
something in the sweetness of the air, the growing things, the 'robin
in the greening grass' that voices it. Duties that have before held in
their performance something of pleasure become irksome, and practical
thoughts of the day's work are replaced by dreamy pictures of a tent
by the side of a mountain stream--close enough to hear the water's
singing in the night. Two light bamboo rods rest against the tent-pole,
and a little column of smoke rising straight up through the branches
marks the supper fire. Jack is preparing the evening meal, and, as
I dream, there comes to me the odor of crisply browned trout and
sputtering bacon--was ever odor more delicious? I dare say that had
the good Charles Lamb smelled it as I have, his 'Dissertation on Roast
Pig' would never have been written. But then Charles Lamb never went
a-fishing as we do here in the west--we who have the mountains and the
fresh air so boundlessly.
"And neither did Izaak Walton for that matter. He who is sponsor for
all that is gentle in angling missed much that is best in the sport
by living too early. He did not experience the exquisite pleasure
of wading down mountain streams in supposedly water-proof boots and
feeling the water trickling in coolingly; nor did he know the joy of
casting a gaudy fly far ahead with a four-ounce rod, letting it drift,
insect-like, over that black hole by the tree stump, and then feeling
the seaweed line slip through his fingers to the _whirr_ of the reel.
And, at the end of the day, supper over, he did not squat around a big
camp-fire and light his pipe, the silent darkness of the mountains
gathering round, and a basketful of willow-packed trout hung in the
clump of pines by the tent. Izaak's idea of fishing did not comprehend
such joy. With a can of worms and a crude hook, he passed the day by
quiet streams, threading the worms on his hook and thinking kindly of
all things. The day's meditations over, he went back to the village,
and, mayhap, joined a few kindred souls over a tankard of ale at
the sign of the Red Lobster. But he missed the mountains, the water
rushing past his tent, the bacon and trout, the camp-fire--the physical
exaltation of it all. His kind of fishing was angling purely, while
modern Waltons, as a rule, eschew the worm.
[Illustration: FIG. 224.--Fishing for Tai, Tokyo Bay. (Photograph by J.
O. Snyder.)]
"To my mind, there is no real sport in any kind of fishing except
fly-fishing. This sitting on the bank of a muddy stream with your bait
sunk, waiting for a bite, may be conducive to gentleness and patience
of spirit, but it has not the joy of action in which a healthy man
revels. How much more sport is it to clamber over fallen logs that
stretch far out a-stream, to wade slipping over boulders and let
your fly drop caressingly on ripples and swirling eddies and still
holes! It is worth all the work to see the gleam of a silver side as
a half-pounder rises, and, with a flop, takes the fly excitedly to
the bottom. And then the nervous thrill as, with a deft turn of the
wrist, you hook him securely--whoever has felt that thrill cannot
forget it. It will come back to him in his law office when he should
be thinking of other things; and with it will come a longing for that
dear remembered stream and the old days. That is the hold trout-fishing
takes on a man.
"It is spring now and I feel the old longing myself, as I always do
when life comes into the air and the smell of new growth is sweet. I
got my rod out to-day, put it together, and have been looking over my
flies. If I cannot use them, I can at least muse over days of the past
and dream of those to come." (WALDEMAR YOUNG.)
FOOTNOTES:
[146] The cormorant is tamed for this purpose. A harness is placed
about its wings and a ring about the lower part of its neck. Two or
three birds may be driven by a boy in a shallow stream, a small net
behind him to drive the fish down the river. In a large river like that
of Gifu, where the cormorants are most used, the fishermen hold the
birds from the boats and fish after dark by torchlight. The bird takes
a great interest in the work, darts at the fishes with great eagerness,
and fills its throat and gular pouch as far down as the ring. Then
the boy takes him out of the water, holds him by the leg and shakes
the fishes out into a basket. When the fishing is over the ayu are
preserved, the ring is taken off from the bird's neck, and the zako or
minnows are thrown to him for his share. These he devours greedily.