Independence on a 5-Acre Farm

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MACKEREL

If you live near a part of the coast where mackerel come you are very lucky. They come to us in Pembrokeshire about July and keep on, off and on, all summer, ending with a fine flourish with the "harvest mackerel" in September. We catch them with "the feathers". Actually I use a modification of the feathers—"the fish fag", which is an invention from Norway. The principle is the same, and if you live near any part of the coast where mackerel come you have only to ask the first person you meet where to get "the feathers" and how to use them, and he will tell you. You can often catch three or four hundred mackerel in a day like this, and so one day's fishing will stock you up with salt fish for the year. One year the mackerel stubbornly refused to come here, and as I was going for a voyage in my little boat to the south coast of England I was desperate to catch my quota before I left. Alas, by my sailing date I had not caught one, so I sailed away leaving my poor wife and children mackerelless. But as I was rounding Strumble Head I just thought I would try a line overboard. Two hours later I sailed into my first port of call, Porth Gain, with 260 fat mackerel. I telephoned to Sally, she came over in the horseless carriage, and the mackerel were in the salt 'ere midnight. Treat them, in every respect, as you would herring. There is nothing you can do with herring that you can't do with the mackerel. You can freeze mackerel, but not, to any advantage, herring.

To make the various kinds of smoked herring (or mackerel) in the proper professional manner:

KIPPERS. Split down the back. Soak in 70—80 per cent brine (say 3 lbs. per gallon water) for an hour or two. Smoke for six hours at 85° F. (30° C.). (I would say simply leave them in the chimney all night.) They'll keep a week in cold weather—the harder you smoke them the longer they'll keep.

BLOATERS. Don't gut them at all. Leave them in dry salt all night. Smoke them for four hours at 80° F. (27° C.). Again, I just hang 'em in the chimney and forget 'em. I have a neighbor here who used to be beaten as a boy for pinching the herrings from the simnai fawr until it was discovered that an owl had been flying down the chimney and it was this that was responsible for pinching the herrings!

There is a difference between what are known in the trade as cold smoked and cooked smoked fish. In the former the temperature of the smoke must never be allowed to go over 86° F. (30° C.).

BUCKLING are cooked-smoked. They stay in brine for a couple of hours, gutted but unsplit (but leave roe), then hang for-an hour in smoke at 90° F., then 180° F. for an hour. If it goes up to 250° F. (121° C.) it doesn't matter.

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