Sea cook

“ Page 426 TENDERLOIN OF TROUT WITH WINE SAUCE Cut a large sea-trout in pieces and simmer until done in salted and acidulated boiling water to which a large sliced onion has been added. Drain and keep warm. Cook together two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour and add enough of the liquid drained from the fish to make a thick sauce. Cook until thick, stirring constantly, take from the fire, add one cupful of Madeira wine and three eggs well-beaten. Put the fish in a buttered baking-pan, sprinkle with seasoned crumbs, cover with mushrooms, then with oysters and shrimps. ”

“ Thanks to the skill of the trained cook there are an infinite number of ways in which the commoner sort of fish that are to be had everywhere, can be transformed into a great variety of dainty, yet simple and inexpensive dishes. ”

“ James Fish Chowder.—Put half pound sliced salt pork in bottom of kettle and fry brown, then remove the pork and put in layers of potatoes, onions and fish sliced, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. Use one quart each, potatoes and onions to three pounds of fish, cover with cold water and bring to a boil gradually and cook slowly for half an hour, then add two pounds sea biscuit soaked for five minutes in warm water, boil five minutes more and serve immediately after adding half a pint of port wine and a bottle of champagne. ”

“ Fish Pie.—Take the remains of any cooked fish, white-meated being preferable, remove bones, skin, etc., season with pepper, salt and mace. To each pound of fish add one dozen oysters. Put a layer of fish in the baking dish, then oysters, then more fish, and so on to the top. Pour in half a cup of stock or water, put bits of butter on top, cover with puff paste and bake half an hour. Make a cream sauce and pour into the pie before serving. ”

“ They had told me that the ship's cook must know how to manage things at sea; but it is easy enough to manage things when one has plenty of sides of bacon, and whole tubs of salt pork, and mouldy flour. One has delicate living on board; but one does not learn to prepare soup on a sausage-peg. ”

“ Finish with a layer of the fish, sprinkling it with the cracker crumbs dotted with butter. Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes, or until the top is well browned.
Fish for Frying.—Brook trout, black bass, cod steaks, flounder fillet, perch, pickerel, pompano, smelts, whitefish steak, pike, weakfish, tilefish.
Fish for Boiling.—Cod, fresh herring, weakfish, tilefish, sea bass, pickerel, red snapper, salt and fresh mackerel, haddock, halibut, salmon, sheepshead. ”

“ Rub well inside and out with salt, butter and pepper; stuff and sew up, or bind firmly, and lay in baking pan with a very little water, cover with paper until nearly done, then remove paper and sprinkle a few bread crumbs over the fish and let it brown nicely. Serve with plain butter and flour added to the fish gravy. If you have a piece to roast that will not admit of stuffing, prepare some forcemeat balls (No. 89) and bake beside the fish. ”

“ This may be made of fish cooked expressly for the dish, or remnants of almost any kind of cooked fish may be used. The very best fish for the purpose is the striped bass, for its flesh is remarkably white, very firm, and possesses a fine flavor. First stick the fish with cloves, then boil it in vinegar and water. Remove the skin and head, if a whole fish, and set aside to cool. When ready to serve, place it on a napkin on a bed of crisp lettuce. Garnish with sprigs of parsley, slices of cucumber, water cresses, sliced lemon, or boiled sliced beats, any of these are suitable. ”

“ The solid graystone church and convent stand in bold relief among the neat little white French cottages at Roberval, there are an immense sawmill and a modern hotel, while in front is the grand sweep of the lake, like a vast inland sea, its opposite shore almost beyond vision, excepting where a far-away mountain spur may loom just above the horizon. ”

“ The people here jerk their beef by taking out the bones, cutting it into large but thin slices, then curing it with salt, and drying it in the shade: it eats very well, and, if kept dry, will remain good a long time at sea. ”

“ Where it meets the sea is Plum Island, its sand ridges scalloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent, and its distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky. Standing at its mouth, looking up its sparkling stream to its source,—a silver cascade which falls all the way from the White Mountains to the sea,—and behold a city on each successive plateau, a busy colony of human beavers around every fall. ”

“ There is a glitter in the sea, a sparkle on the ice, and a stillness in the atmosphere, which fascinates the soul but overpowers the mind. There is a solitude and restfulness about the whole scene which can only be felt; it cannot be described. Here, to the east, the face of the mysterious land is clothed by the successive sheets of snows of the sleeping years of countless silent centuries. About us are scores of icebergs, huge table-topped, pyramidal, and castle-like masses, fragments of this same unknown blanket of accumulated snows which clothes every aspect of antarctic land. ”

“ We have left the white line of the pack-ice under the black sea behind us, and now the ever-present electric glimmer, the ice-blink, is fading over our stern. As the blink vanishes, and the sky is screened by the normal South Pacific dulness, we descend from our world of lofty thoughts, in which we had been raised and upheld by the long months of isolation, and frost, and storm; and with this descent our minds and our hearts are set on the joys of home-going. The feeling of isolation and desertion now comes over us stronger than ever before. ”

“ We seem to be frozen to the earth, for there is nothing which indicates movement. But with all this appearance of solidity we are in reality continually afloat, adrift with the polar winds, on a perennial ice-sheeted sea. How we long to put our feet on solid ground! We do not desire so greatly to see trees, and plants, and flowers as we do to sit upon something immovable; something not covered with this eternal whiteness, and not glittering with a dazzling ice-blink—plain ground and bare rocks will satisfy us. ”

“ To those who had perished in the sea they were telling, ere the gates of ice closed above them, all the news of the past year—things of interest and personal, and even of years before, as far back as they could remember. Almost every family each year loses someone in the sea; almost every family was represented by these weeping women, overburdened with their own naive sorrow, and who yet strangely sought to cheer the souls of the disconsolate and desolate dead. ”

“ The sea breathes, and lifts the crust of ice which the wind stirs. The pack ever drifts in response to the pull of the air and the drive of the water. Even the sun, the only fixed dot in this stirring, restless world, where all you see is, without your seeing it, moving like a ship at sea, seems to have a rapid movement in a gold-flushed circle not far above endless fields of purple crystal; but that movement is never higher, never lower—always in the same fixed path. The instruments detect a slight spiral ascent, day after day, but the eye detects no change. ”

“ The ice moved; the sea began to breathe. The snows sparkled with the promise of double days and midnight suns.
Life's buds had opened to full blossom. On the opposite shores, which now seemed near, Nature's incubators had long worked overtime to start the little ones of the wilds. Tiny bears danced to their mothers' call; baby seals sunned in downy pelts. Little foxes were squinting at school in learning the art of sight. In the wave of germinating joys our suppressed nocturnal passions rose with surprise anew. We were raised to an Arctic paradise. ”

“ Nearly one-third of the circumference of the globe is between us and our loved ones at home. Under such circumstances, far away from the world of life, isolated from accustomed comforts, on a sea of moving ice, in a dead, white world of eternal frigidity, how can we enjoy Easter? We try hard to arouse a buoyant spirit, and each has taken it upon himself to bring out the bright side of the one nearest to him, but our efforts are poorly rewarded. For after superficial laughter we sink into a lethargy which becomes more and more normal to us as the winter and the night advance. ”

“ Although we feel that we are on the threshold of more great discoveries, and although, for some unexplained reason, we are all in a fever-heat of excitement, quite like a prize-fighter on the eve of a great battle, calmly and coolly considered there is nothing very wonderful in our immediate surroundings. The weather is quiet but unsettled. A heavy sea rolls in under the pack-ice through which we plough. To the west there is a black sky and under it, just on the horizon, is the dark line of an open sea with the marbled peaks of bergs silhouetted against the black sheen of the heavens. ”

“ The scales are said to be eatable, and in cleaning the fish these should not be removed, but the fish should be scoured in salted water. There seems to be a diversity of opinion concerning its flavor, but in the report of the U. S. Fish Commission we find it highly praised. The better way to cook this fish is to boil or bake, and the same recipes given for bass, sheepshead, or similar fish, are well suited to the carp.
No. 220. Fresh Cod Cheeks and Tongues.—These are very nice fried, either plain or rolled in crumbs or beaten egg. ”

“ My impression was that I was in a land of the sorrowful dead, some mid-strata of the spirit world, where, in this gray-green twilight, formless things in the distance moved to and fro.
There is, I believe, in the heart of every man, an instinctive respect for sorrow. With muffled steps, I left the igloo and paced the dreariness of ice, treading slowly, lest, in the darkness, I slip into some unseen crevasse of the open sea. ”

“ Yet her life was most precious by far of the two.
I live on the sea and I'm lord of a ship,
That starts from her rest like a hound from the slip;
Her speed is unrivalled, her beauty is rare;
But her timbers are black as the highwayman's mare. ”

“ On some of the pans of ice are seals basking in the sun, and over the ship, apparently touching the masts and the ropes as the bark rocks to and fro, are giant petrels, Cape pigeons, gulls, white, brown, and blue petrels, all pointing their bills and stretching their necks to examine, perhaps for the first time, human beings and their crafts.
There is a dreamy stillness in the air, in spite of the frequent stirs of wild life, and a charming touch of colour to the sea, the ice, and the land, though the sky is dull, gray, and gloomy. ”

“ What a peculiar effusion of sentiments the welcome face of the sun draws from our frozen fountains of life! How that great golden ball of cold fire incites the spirit to expressions of joy and gratitude! How it sets the tongue to pleasurable utterances, and the vocal chords to music! The sun is, indeed, the father of everything terrestrial. We have suddenly found a tonic in the air, an inspiration in the scenic splendours of the sea of ice, and a cheerfulness in each other’s companionship which make the death-dealing depression of the night a thing of the past. ”

“ Nature seemed to sing with exultation. Approaching a highland of emerald green and seal brown, I heard the wild shouting of hawks from the summit, and from below the shrill chattering of millions of auks with baby families. And nearer, from the life enraptured waters, the minor note of softly cooing ducks and mating guillemots. From the interior land of ice, rising above the low booming of a sapphire glacier moving majestically to the sea, rang the bark of foxes, the shrill notes of the ptarmigan, and from an invisible farther distance the raucous wolf howl of Eskimo dogs. ”

“ It is a healthful resort, for all the winds that blow come from the sea, and its sea-views are striking, the rugged masses of Bradda Head, the mellow-coloring of the Calf, and the broad expanse of waters, dotted by scores of fishing-boats, making many scenes of artistic merit. While the want of trees makes the land-views harsh and cold, yet the glens and coves opening into the sea are the charms of Manx scenery, the high fuchsia-hedges surrounding many of the cottages giving bright coloring to the landscape when the flowers are in bloom. ”

“ Returning to the settlement, we paid our hunting guides, made presents to the women and children, and set sail for Etah. An offshore breeze filled the big wings of the canvas. As borne on the back of some great white bird, we soared northward into a limpid molten sea. From below came the music of our phonograph, curiously shouting its tunes, classic and popular, in that grim, golden region of glory and death.
It is curious how ambition sets the brain on fire, and quickens the heart throbs. ”

“ The natives quieted and moved toward the church. The birds ceased to sing; the flies sank to the ground. With the failing light the air quickly chilled, the bright contour of the land blurred, the deep blue of the sea faded to a dull purple-blue seemingly lighter, but the midday splendor of high lights and shadows was lost. The burning glitter of the waters under the sun now quickly changed to a silvery glow. The alabaster and ultramarine blue of the icebergs was veiled in gray. ”

“ To me it was to be a season of feverish labor in which every hand at work and every hour employed counted in the problem of success. While the hands of the entire tribe would be busy, and while I should direct and help in the making of sleds, catching of game, preparing of meat, I knew that my mind would find continual excitement in dreams of my quest, in anticipating and solving its difficulties, in feeling the bounding pulse of the dash over the ice of the Polar sea, with dogs joyously barking, whips cracking the air, and the reappearing sun paving our pathway with liquid gold. ”