—and seafood generally—represent the planet's largest stock of ‘wild’ food. Indeed, the term ‘wild’ applies to all seafoods except for the small (but growing) proportion which are ‘farmed’. Yet the term is rarely so used. This might be because ‘wild’ may mean ferocious as well as non-domesticated, and many fish are perceived as gentle of habit. The Roman poet Ovid praised the grey mullet for its blameless life, browsing on vegetation and never partaking of flesh. But most fish gobble up other fish relentlessly, as the dialogue between the Third Fisherman and the First Fisherman in Shakespeare's Pericles makes clear:
Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.Why, as men do on land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
No one can know for sure how far back the history of fish as food for humans (or, earlier, hominids) stretches. Consumption and appreciation of seafood certainly date back to what are called ‘the earliest times’. Two highly readable sources for the subject are Radcliffe's Fishing from the Earliest Times (1921) and Ancient and Modern Fish Tattle by the Revd C. David Badham (1854), which has more ancient than modern material in it.
The earliest evidence is mute: the middens of empty sea shells which have been uncovered on many prehistoric sites and which reveal, for what it may be worth, that primitive people in Scotland feasted on limpets and periwinkles, and Australian Aborigines on certain clams. Harvesting such foods, which conveniently sit waiting to be gathered in the intertidal zones, needs no technology. Catching fish, on the other hand, needs some. But it can be very simple, as techniques still used in Africa and Oceania demonstrate.
In fact, however, the art of fishing and the scale of consumption developed rapidly in early historic times. The works of early Chinese writers and of classical Greek authors, although some survive in mere fragments, exhibit a sophisticated range of specific fishing techniques and considerable discrimination between the species. Commenting on the more recent history of fishing, Radcliffe observes that techniques have changed less over the centuries than have corresponding techniques in, say, hunting (changed by the introduction of the gun); and that the spear, the line and hook, and the net have remained pre-eminent.
Classical Roman authors yield the first evidence of certain phenomena which are still evident 2,000 years later, namely gastronomic gush and undue emphasis on the merits of this or that particular species. It is odd that the Roman admiral Optatus should have taken pains to introduce the parrotfish (Latin scarus) from the Carpathian Sea to the west coast of Italy. No one in the Mediterranean pays much attention to this fish nowadays, although it is known in the Aegean and (as marzpan) in Malta. Perhaps its vivid colouring, often bright green, attracted the admiral's eye. Roman enthusiasm for another fish, the red mullet, is easier to understand, although the extreme financial greed and morbid practices which sometimes attended its consumption have puzzling aspects.
In medieval times, when the pomp and luxury of the Roman Empire had vanished, attitudes were more practical. This was the age when the demand for fish, stimulated by the Christian Church's insistence on meatless days, began to have a perceptible influence on the political and economic history of the western world. This development was linked with the realization that stocks of such fish as cod, in northerly waters, were truly enormous.
So, at least in Europe, the whole business of fishing and trade in fish took a new turn as the Dark Ages came to an end and northerly peoples such as the Scandinavians emerged from relative obscurity. The powerful Hanseatic League, centred on the Baltic Sea, was based to a considerable extent on its near monopoly of the trade in salted and dried fish; and these fish came from the huge stocks of the N. Atlantic. Indeed, the subsequent colonization of N. America was certainly stimulated—some would say largely caused—by the search for ever more effective ways of exploiting these stocks and by the competition between the maritime powers for them.
The effects of all this activity and of the fish cures which were then developed are still visible, because techniques devised to preserve fish, in the period before refrigeration, produced results for which people acquired a taste; and the products therefore continue in being. See, for example, herring cures under herring, and the separate entry for kipper; also lutefisk. Similar ones are now used for other species such as mackerel, marlin, swordfish, and tuna.
In recent times, developments such as canning and freezing, in conjunction with the emergence of steam- and then diesel-driven fishing vessels, have wrought and are still wreaking great changes. Episodes such as the Anglo-Icelandic ‘cod war’ and the tangle of problems associated with fishing limits and quotas echo the manœuvres of the Hanseatic League and the era of colonization and serve as a reminder that food is the very stuff of which politics are made. This applies in both western and eastern hemispheres. More efficient techniques and larger, more potent fishing vessels have brought the world to a point where it is possible to exhaust previously infinite resources. The Grand Banks cod off Newfoundland is a case in point. This is having, or most likely will have, a profound effect on our diet. First, many species are becoming rare and expensive and, second, they are being replaced by farmed fish (see aquaculture).
The Chinese have a consistent record, stretching back for more than 4,000 years, of recognizing the nutritional (and often the medical) value of most seafoods, and of honouring fish. As Bernard Read remarked:
Owing to its reproductive powers, in China the fish is a symbol of regeneration. As fish are reputed to swim in pairs, so a pair of fish is emblematic of connubial bliss. As in water fish move swiftly in any direction, they signify freedom from all restraints … Their scaly armour makes them a symbol of martial attributes, bringing strength and courage; and swimming against the current provides an emblem of perseverance. The fish is a symbol of abundance or wealth and prosperity.
In the West, the fish was a symbol of Christianity and prescribed as Lenten fare; but opinions were divided on its merits, even on its suitability, as food. In Britain, for example, the evidence of 18th-century cookbooks indicates increased consumption of fresh fish from the sea, but the literature of dietetics shows a strong counter-current flowing from some medical authorities. As recently as 1835 Graham, in the sixth edition of his treatise on Modern Domestic Medicine, declared that fish ‘affords upon the whole, but little nourishment, and is, for the most part, of difficult digestion, and this appears to be the general sentiment of intelligent medical men’. If this would raise eyebrows now, what of the book On Leprosy and Fish-Eating by Jonathan Hutchinson (1906) whose avowed intent was to demonstrate, in 400 pages, that the fundamental cause of leprosy was ‘the eating of fish in a state of commencing decomposition’? These examples remind us that it is only in the present century that fish and other seafoods have been fully accepted in the western world as an admirable source of nourishment.
In their role as food for humans, fish have several unusual aspects.
Of the two main sorts of fishy confusion, one may be regarded as natural and viewed with tolerance. This is the confusion caused by the fact that even within one language, indeed sometimes within one dialect, the same fish will have a range of different names. These reflect local practice in small coastal communities, which were often isolated from each other in the past by poor overland communications. In Italy, for example, the common grey mullet, Mugil cephalus, has more than 40 different names.
The other sort of confusion applies to European languages, especially English, and is a by-product of colonization. Its effect is to make it seem that there are fewer families or species of fish in the world than there really are. Early English colonists, to take the main culprits as an example, applied familiar but inappropriate names to the species which they encountered in the New World, Australasia, and elsewhere. Of the fish which have been dubbed ‘salmon’ in Australia and New Zealand, none is a salmon, and some of them are not even related to each other. The Murray cod of Australia is not even a sea fish, let alone a close relation of the true cod.
This is, to a large extent, a global subject. In whatever hemisphere, fish tend to fall into broad groups from the point of view of the cook, according to their size, shape, and fat content. A Chinese cook has no problem in the fish markets of, say, Naples or New Orleans; and cooks from the western world can find fish close to their requirements in the Orient. Substitutions rarely present a problem. And any given fish can usually be cooked by any of several of the standard techniques available: grilling (US broiling), poaching, steaming, pan-frying (or stir-frying), deep-frying, stewing, braising, etc. (There are also a few specific techniques for fish such as au bleu, applied mainly to trout.)
There are also categories of fish dishes which are generically although not always specifically transferable between the hemispheres. Fish balls are an example; those of Norway (fiskeboller) and their polymorphous relations in Malaysia (see Davidson, 1977) are both made with great finesse. And there is no reason why the fish puddings of Scandinavia (e.g. the Norwegian fiskepudding) should not have their parallels elsewhere. Equally, the fish soup/stews of Europe (such as bouillabaisse, the Cacciucco of the Livornese coast, the Cotriade of Brittany, the Marmitako of Galicia) may claim justifiably to be, in their several ways, unique, but the principles on which they are constructed can be followed wherever there are fish.
Nonetheless, there are some interesting contrasts between East and West. Some spring from differences between the supporting casts of ingredients. For example, fish coated in an English batter and fried in beef dripping is very different from the same fish fried in a wok in peanut oil. And there is a world of difference between fish simmered in a court bouillon flavoured with Mediterranean herbs and the same fish cooked in coconut cream with lemon grass and other SE Asian aromatics. Again, comparison is hardly possible between plain steamed fish, traditional fare for Anglo-Saxon invalids and convalescents, and something like Haw mok (Thai curried fish steamed in artichoke containers).
However, wherever one is and whatever range of other ingredients one uses, the same question is likely to come up, namely how to calculate cooking time. For the majority of cooks, practice has removed the need to calculate; but those who do calculate usually do it wrong.
A fish is cooked when its innermost parts have reached a temperature of about 63 °C (145 °F). In conventional (not microwave) cookery, heat travels from the outside to the inside. So the determining factor is the distance to be covered. Since the shape of fish varies greatly it is obvious for a start that the weight of a fish is not a good guide. It could not possibly work for both a long, thin eel and a chunky grouper. Realization of this prompted the promulgation of the so-called ‘Canadian method’, which calls for basing the cooking time on the maximum thickness of a fish. That is right. But if it is going to work, it has to be applied in accordance with the relevant law of physics, which is this:
The time taken for heat to penetrate an object is not in simple proportion to its thickness, but to the square of the thickness.
One might think that a piece of fish two inches thick would take twice as long to cook as a piece one inch thick. Not so; if the heat has to go twice as far, it will take four times as long. That many people are unaware of this explains why a thin piece of fish is often overcooked and a large fish risks being partly undercooked. It also explains the importance of scoring the sides of a fish, a practice which is found worldwide but is done with particular care in China. If the scoring is done at the correct intervals, and deeply enough, the result may be to halve the maximum distance which the heat must traverse to reach the innermost part, and therefore to reduce cooking time to a quarter of what it would have been.
The same principle applies to all foodstuffs. This was made clear in an extensive discussion at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1997, when a statement about it was circulated under the signatures of Professor Nicholas Kurti (Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford) and Harold McGee (the most authoritative writer on science in the kitchen). See Walker (1998), especially to learn what qualifications apply to the principle in respect of irregularly shaped or disproportionately thick items. Fish cookery is an area which is relatively free from any such complications, which is why it provided the context for discussing the principle at the Symposium, and why the principle is explained here rather than under heat and its transmission.
Finally, the fundamental question: does seafood need to be cooked? The Japanese, with their sashimi, have demonstrated that really fresh seafood is very good when eaten raw (especially so if it is presented with Japanese artistry). And the famous ceviche of Latin America provides a method of ‘cooking’ without cooking, applicable in particular to seafood. What happens here is that the marinating of seafood in lemon or lime juice causes the denaturation of the protein in much the same way as the application of heat in conventional cooking would do.
Both sashimi and ceviche are in the process of spreading round the world, and the former in particular seems sure to modify habits of seafood consumption; both directly and indirectly too, for the Japanese conception of what is a fresh fish in the market is gaining ground, and slowly tightening up lax standards elsewhere. (Not always so lax. In the 19th century, fish merchants kept cod alive in floating wooden chests for the London market. And even now it is possible, indeed customary, to buy live cod in Bergen in Norway, and live plaice in Denmark.)
A fish kettle is a specially designed cooking utensil for poaching whole fish, now almost always made of aluminium although examples in tinned copper survive. It is typically long and narrow, to match the shape of a normal fish, and has a removable grid which permits the poached fish to be lifted out without damage. Some antique fish kettles are relatively wider, presumably because they were intended to take two or more fish side by side. However, flatfish such as turbot would not fit into even a wide oblong kettle, so a lozenge-shaped sort, called turbotière in French, is made for them.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Badham, Revd C. David (1854), Ancient and Modern Fish Tattle, London.
Clover, Charles (2004), The End of the Line, London: Ebury Press.
Davidson, Alan (1977), Seafood of South-East Asia, Singapore: Federal Publications. (Rev edn 2003, Totnes: Prospect Books.)
Walker, Harlan (ed) (1998), Fish, Food from the Waters, Oxford Symposium on Food History 1997, Totnes: Prospect Books.
