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The recipes we are now giving are suitable for dinner, supper, or
breakfast dishes, and will be found especially useful for the latter
meal, as there is nothing more desirable for breakfast than fish. We are
constantly told that it is not possible to have fresh fish for
breakfast, because it cannot be kept all night in the home larder. But
we must insist that there is no greater difficulty in keeping fish than
meat. Indeed, there is perhaps less difficulty, because fish can be left
lying in vinegar, if necessary, whereas in the case of meat it cannot
always be done.
We will suppose that it is necessary to use strict economy. It is as
well to proceed on that supposition, because people can always be lavish
in their expenditure, whereas it is not so easy to provide for the
household at once well and economically. In many neighbourhoods fish is
sold much cheaper late in the day than in the morning, and in this case
the housekeeper who can buy overnight for the use of the next day has a
great advantage. Suppose you get the tail of a cod weighing three
pounds, as you frequently may, at a very small price in the evening, and
use a part of it stuffed and baked for supper, you can have a dish of
cutlets of the remainder for breakfast which will be very acceptable. We
do not mean a dish of the cold remains, but of a portion of the fish
kept uncooked, as it easily may be, as we have before said, by dipping
it in vinegar. Or, you get mackerel. Nothing is better than this fish
treated according to the recipe we give. Even so delicate a fish as
whiting may, by a little management with vinegar, be kept perfectly well
from one day to the other. Skinned whiting has very little flavour, and
although when skilfully cooked in the usual way it is useful by way of
change, the nourishment is much impaired by the removal of the skin. The
same remark applies to soles. By frying fish unskinned you get a dish of
a different character to that of skinned fish, and one of which the
appetite does not so soon tire.