CRIMPING

Common-sense cookery for English hous... · Kenney-Herbert, A. R. (Arthur Robert), 1840-1916 · 1905
Source
Common-sense cookery for English households : with twenty menus worked out in detail
Status
success · extracted 12 days ago
Not a recipe
No
Ingredients (0)
No ingredients extracted.
Instructions (5)
  1. If large enough, fresh-water fish should certainly be crimped as soon as killed, i.e., scored with a sharp knife, transversely from head to tail, on each side nearly to the bone, the cuts being about two inches apart according to the size of the fish.
  2. A douche of the coldest water available should follow, or a plunge in the stream in a cool shady spot for a quarter of an hour.
  3. Crimping should be carried out before the fish stiffens.
  4. The process renders the flesh "firmer, and crisper" (says Sir Humphrey Davy) "by preserving the irritability of the fibre," while the speedy removal of the intestines and grass and weeds, on which the fish has been feeding, from its throat, goes far to destroy the muddy taste, and to nullify any unwholesome effect that may arise from the sort of food it may have been eating.
  5. Old Isaak inveighed very strongly against allowing a fish to soak in water after it had once been cleansed, pointing out that such a practice "abated much of its sweetness." Speedy cooking after cleansing was his maxim.
Original Text
CRIMPING. If large enough, fresh-water fish should certainly be crimped as soon as killed, i.e., scored with a sharp knife, transversely from head to tail, on each side nearly to the bone, the cuts being about two inches apart according to the size of the fish. A douche of the coldest water available should follow, or a plunge in the stream in a cool shady spot for a quarter of an hour. Crimping should be carried out before the fish stiffens. The process renders the flesh "firmer, and crisper" (says Sir Humphrey Davy) "by preserving the irritability of the fibre," while the speedy removal of the intestines and grass and weeds, on which the fish has been feeding, from its throat, goes far to destroy the muddy taste, and to nullify any unwholesome effect that may arise from the sort of food it may have been eating. Old Isaak inveighed very strongly against allowing a fish to soak in water after it had once been cleansed, pointing out that such a practice "abated much of its sweetness." Speedy cooking after cleansing was his maxim.
Notes
—