Fisheries—England and Wales Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Fishery Investigations: Series 1, Freshwater Fisheries and Miscellaneous

Abstract

THE development of methods of preserving fish was a matter of national importance during the war, and the present account is founded on investigations started in that period. The fish used for canning are mostly surface-feeding and living fish, such as sprats (or bristling), sardines (or pilchards), tunny and bonito, herring and mackerel, the only other fish of any importance being the salmon caught in America on its migration to fresh water for breeding. Of British fish there is a great excess of herring in the normal fisheries, and, given suitable fishing gear, large quantities of sprats can also be obtained on all coasts. Mackerel areat times abundant, but there is little certainty of heavy catches year by year; pilchards are local to Cornwall, and the immature forms (sardines), so extensively tinned in France, Spain, and Portugal, are not caught in quantity. There was one British sprat cannery before the war, but herrings were put up at the great herring ports in oil or with tomato, the product being in some cases excellent. Excess sprats were generally used for manure, while herrings were salt-pickled and barrelled for export, the price being two or three for a penny. The latter is an “unspeakable” product, which has never found favour in this country, and fresh methods of preservation are urgently requisite for the utilisation of herrings as a cheap form of food. The markets, too, of Central and East Europe, which took most of this product, are disorganised, and it is doubtful whether they can ever be recreated, as there would seem to be a real improvement in Continental taste, brought about by the temporarily improved food conditions of the war.

Fisheries—England and Wales. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Fishery Investigations: Series 1, Freshwater Fisheries and Miscellaneous.

Vol. 2, No. 1, The Methods of Fish Canning in England. Pp. 25. (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1921.) 2s. 6d. net.