American Cookery: The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables

so elegant, yet give a higher relished flavor to the taste. Every species generally of _salt water Fish_, are best fresh from the water, tho' the _Hannah Hill, Black Fish, Lobster, Oyster, Flounder, Bass, Cod, Haddock_, and _Eel_, with many others, may be transported by land many miles, find a good market, and retain a good relish; but as generally, live ones are bought first, deceits are used to give them a freshness of appearance, such as peppering the gills, wetting the fins and tails, and even painting the gills, or wetting with animal blood. Experience and attention will dictate the choice of the best. Fresh gills, full bright eyes, moist fins and tails, are denotements of their being fresh caught; if they are soft, its certain they are stale, but if deceits are used, your smell must approve or denounce them, and be your safest guide. Of all fresh water fish, there are none that require, or so well afford haste in cookery, as the _Salmon Trout_, they are best when caught under a fall or cateract--from what philosophical circumstance is yet unsettled, yet true it is, that at the foot of a fall the waters are much colder than at the head; Trout choose those waters; if taken from them and hurried into dress, they are genuinely good; and take rank in point of superiority of flavor, of most other fish. _Perch and Roach_, are noble pan fish, the deeper the water from whence taken, the finer are their flavors; if taken from shallow water, with muddy bottoms, they are impregnated therewith, and are unsavory. _Eels_, though taken from muddy bottoms, are best to jump in the pan. Most white or soft fish are best bloated, which is done by salting, peppering, and drying in the sun, and in a chimney; after 30 or 40 hours drying, are best broiled, and moistened with butter, &c. _Poultry--how to choose_. Having before stated that the female in almost every instance, is preferable to the male, and peculiarly so in the _Peacock_, which, tho' beautifully plumaged, is tough, hard, stringy, and