Specification of Benjamin Batley : curing and preserving herrings and sprats.

  • Batley, Benjamin.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Benjamin Batley : curing and preserving herrings and sprats. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hatleys Method of Curing and Preserving Herrings and Sprats. After severing the head and taking out the entrails of the herrings or spratts, salt the body of the fish with bay or rock or the common salt, in the casks (if not sufficiently salted as sea sticks), but the bay or rock salt is preferable, as the common is more apt to aborb the pickle and occasion the fish to rust. In the next place, pack the fish in a cask in the usual way, and between every 5 layer sprinkle a small portion of salt, and also pickle sufficient to cover the fish; such pickle to be made with one pound of bay salt, four ounces of salt¬ petre, and from two to four pounds of molasses (to suit different palates), to a gallon of spring water if to be procured, and boil the same till the whole of the ingredients are dissolved ; (river water may answer the purpose, but spring 10 water is preferable.) When the fish are so packed, leaving a vacum between two and three inches of the head of the cask, for a full portion of pickle, then let the cask be headed up and properly coopered, with a cork hole either in the head or centre, through which may be poured a further supply of the pickle for the preservation of the fish; and when the herrings or spratts, but 15 particularly the latter, are intended for travelling, it may be adviseable to put a false top, bored with holes between the fish and cask head, in order to prevent their being to much shaken. The same proportion of any sugar might be used as a substitute for molasses, but the extra price would probably be considered as an impediment, and from one to three months should be allowed 20 for curing, in order to give the fish a full flavor before they are used or smoaked or dried. The above pickle would answer for flavoring the fish in their original state if needful, but on account of the oil and filth contained in the heads and roes, the preferable mode of curing and preserving the body of the fish is, by severing the head from and taking out the entrails, as 25 the only effectual means of eradicating the noxious qualities which would otherwise adhere to them ; and in curing spratts, it is expedient to sprinkle a larger quantity of salt in proportion between each layer than is requisite for the herrings when packed in the cask, and as the spratt casks will seldom exceed ten gallons, a vacum of about one inch from the head for casks of 30 that dimension will be sufficient. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Seven¬ teenth day of September, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred. BEINJ* Signed and sealed in the pre¬ sence of Tuo8 Howe, Clk. to Mr. Baker, Lincolns Inn Fields. (l.s.) BATLEY. Ho