FISH no better lesson on how to choose fish than this: if it is possible in your neighborhood, or while vacationing, go to see a fish boat empty its gleaming cargo on the wharf. Learn to know the earmarks —not only those left by St. Peter on a haddock, but the signs of perfect freshness on all fish. Do not be afraid of touching them; fresh smelts have the fragrance of violets, and every fish has a wholesome smell. Turn them over, examine them close ly. " An eye like a dead fish " refers to a fish which has lain for weeks in cold storage, not to one just from the water. It will have eyes as full and almost as clear as any live crea ture. Notice the gills; they will be beautifully red, the fins will be stiff, the scales shining, and the flesh so firm that it springs back after the finger has been pressed into it. One cannot expect, especially if your home is some distance from the ocean or the great lakes, to find in the mar ket fish as superlatively fresh as when lifted straight from the net. Still, to be fit for human food, they should not have lost much of their beauty. The signs to avoid are limp fins, dull eyes, pale, liver-colored gills, flesh in which you leave a dent by an impression of the finger, streaks of gray or yellow in the skin and flesh, and the slightest symp tom of a disagreeable odor. If you have to make the choice between salt cod and a fish of this description, choose salt cod; it is infinitely more healthful; it does not contain a pos sibility of ptomaine poisoning.
When purchasing halibut or sword fish, where the head and fins have been removed, the test is pearly white or shining gray skin, firm flesh, and a good odor. It is an ex cellent rule never to buy fish which is out of season. If you want blue fish in February or shad in Novem ber, you can probably obtain it—a fish dealer will produce ahnost any thing from his refrigerator at any time of the year—but you may rest assured it has seen a repose of months in cold storage. If not really dangerous to eat, it will be flabby, it will go to pieces before it is cooked, and be lacking in flavor. It is an ex cellent plan to post oneself thorough ly on the fish which is in season all the year round and purchase accord ing to the month. A dealer will as sure one that fish which has been packed in ice ten days is in as ex cellent condition as when fresh caught. I should say seven or eight days is the limit. After that time it will begin to lose its beautiful moth er-of-pearl sheen.
Although the old theory that flsh is brain food has been exploded, the brain worker will find what he most requires in a bountiful diet of fish. It is digestible food, which is not overstimulating or overnutritive. Both the poet and preacher will do bet ter work on a dinner of broiled bluefish than on rare roast beef. Sal
mon, mackerel, and eels, which are exceedingly oily, are an exception to the digestible rule. They should be severely let alone by people of weak stomachs, while white fish may be classed as the most digestible of all fish.
The shimmering array on the mar ket stall is alluring and confusing, and the fish dealer is apt to be persuasive. It is no economy to be inveigled into buying a 5-pound bluefish when 2 pounds of halibut would have fed your family. Fish left over can be utilized nicely in many ways, but it is better not to have any; in sum mer, cold fish has not remarkable keeping qualities. Decide when you order a fish how you will cook it. The fish dealer can prepare it for planking or broiling better than you can. The cheapest fish is not al ways the most economical. Five pounds of cod contains' about 2 pounds of waste in the shape of skin, head, tail, and bone, while 2 pounds of halibut is solid fish with scarcely an ounce of waste.
The cooking of fish depends large ly on taste, for various methods ap ply frequently and most appetizingly to the same fish. Take halibut, for instance. It may be baked, broiled, fried or boiled, and be quite as de licious in one way as another. This rule is also true of cod, haddock, and nearly every kind of white-fleshed fish. What a cook or a fish dealer calls oily fish—this class contains bluefish, mackerel, herring, salmon, eels, and shad—are best suited for broiling, baking, or planking. They contain so much oil distributed through the flesh that it requires a dry, intense heat to make them pal atable. Salmon is an exception to this rule, being at its best when boiled. An old saying declares, " Small fish should swim twice—once in water, once in oil." It is a good proverb for the cook to remember, because it applies well to every tiny fish; smelts, brook trout, perch, whitebait, catfish, sunfish, bullheads, and everything in small finny things. Sometimes these small fish are sauted, but they are not so good nor so wholesome as when they " swim in oil." The fish which plank to perfection are shad, whitefish, mackerel, blue fish, red snapper, and pompano. There are a number of real advan tages to this method of cooking; it is so easy, it may be done in the hot oven of any coal or gas stove, the wood imparts a flavor to the fish, which can be obtained in no other way. Then there is no difficult task of sliding it from a broiler or bake pan to the platter, because it is the proper thing to ' send the plank straight to the table laid on a folded towel. If you have to prepare a fish for planking, remember it must be cut down the back instead of the stomach, the thin portion of the flesh being folded on the middle of the plank.