- Kippering
The verb, "to kipper", means to preserve meat (fish, poultry, etc.) by rubbing with salt and/or spices, followed by drying in smoke or warm air. This process is customarily enhanced by cleaning, filleting, butterflying or slicing the food to expose maximum surface area to the drying and preservative agents.
Originally applied to the preservation of surplus fish (particularly those known as "kips," harvested during spawning runs), "kippering" has come to mean the preservation of any fish, poultry, beef or other meat in like manner.
When used as a noun,
kipper , in the absence of more specific context, typically refers to herring or other small fish, kippered in the butterfly fashion (slit lengthwise ventrally, cleaned and unfolded in two symetrical halves along the dorsal ridge).The origin of the word kipper is Old English; the English philologist and ethnographer, Walter William Skeat, traces its derivation from the Old English, "kippian", to spawn. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipper#Origin]
The practice of preserving fish by drying, using some combination of salt and smoke —particularly the seasonally plentiful spawning salmon and herring— predates 19th century Britain, possibly even recorded history.
Thomas Nashe writes in 1599 about a fisherman from Lothingland in the Great Yarmouth area, who discovered by accident the benefit of smoking herring. [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PzsHAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA4-PA569&lpg=RA4-PA569&dq=%22fiering+and+smoking%22&source=web&ots=dVab8FAwjR&sig=ghk3bQS_khT8L-NPyoeN8t0DO3g&hl=en "Curing of Herrings — From the Works of Thomas Nash, 1599"] , "The Every-day Book and Table Book; or, Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs, and Events, Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Days, in Past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Months, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac, Including Accounts of the Weather, Rules for Health and Conduct, Remarkable and Important Anecdotes, Facts, and Notices, in Chronology, Antiquities, Topography, Biography, Natural History, Art, Science, and General Literature; Derived from the Most Authentic Sources, and Valuable Original Communication, with Poetical Elucidations, for Daily Use and Diversion. Vol III.", ed. William Hone, (London: 1838) p 569-70. Retrieved on
2008 -06-10] It is also known that kippered fish were eaten in Germany and the custom reached Scandinavia sometime during the Middle Ages.References
ee also
*Sausage (Kippered beef snacks)
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