Salt fish

Salted fish, such as kippered herring or dried and salted cod, is fish cured with dry salt and thus preserved for later eating. Drying or salting, either with dry salt or with brine, was the only widely available method of preserving fish until the 19th century. Dried fish and salted fish (or fish both dried and salted) are a staple of diets in the Caribbean, West Africa, North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Southern China, Scandinavia, parts of Canada including Newfoundland, coastal Russia, and in the Arctic. Like other salt-cured meats, it provides preserved animal protein even in the absence of refrigeration.

Method

Salting is the preservation of food with dry edible salt."Historical Origins of Food Preservation."University of Georgia, National Center for Home Food Preservation
Accessed Mat 2012. It is related to pickling (preparing food with brine, i.e. salty water), and is one of the oldest methods of preserving food. Salt inhibits the growth of microorganisms by drawing water out of microbial cells through osmosis. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted bacteria. Smoking, often used in the process of curing meat, adds chemicals to the surface of meat that reduce the concentration of salt required. Salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salty environment, due to the hypertonic nature of salt. Any living cell in such an environment will become dehydrated through osmosis and die or become temporarily inactivated.

The water activity, a_w, in a fish is defined as the ratio of the water vapour pressure in the flesh of the fish to the vapour pressure of pure water at the same temperature and pressure. It ranges between 0 and 1, and is a parameter that measures how available the water is in the flesh of the fish. Available water is necessary for the microbial and enzymatic reactions involved in spoilage. There are a number of techniques that have been or are used to tie up the available water or remove it by reducing the a_w. Traditionally, techniques such as drying, salting and smoking have been used, and have been used for thousands of years. In more recent times, freeze-drying, water binding humectants, and fully automated equipment with temperature and humidity control have been added. Often a combination of these techniques is used.FAO
Preservation techniques
Fisheries and aquaculture department, Rome. Updated 27 May 2005.

Gallery

File:Carlb-nfld-codflakes.jpg, Platforms, called fish flakes, where cod dry in the sun before being packed in salt
File:Usines de Salaison I Neapolis.JPG, Remains of Roman fish-salting plant at Neapolis
File:Malpe(24-1-08).JPG, Drying salted fish at Malpe Harbour
File:Salt fish dip 070826-292 mank.jpg, Salt fish dip at Jakarta
File:Port Eynon - The Salt House - geograph.org.uk - 868752.jpg, Ruins of the Port Eynon Salt House – seawater was boiled to extract salt for preserving fish
File:Egyptian fishery3.jpg, Egyptians bringing in fish and splitting them for salting
File:A salt fish in the market.jpg, Salted dried butterfishes in Chinese Food Store at Yuen Long, Hong Kong
File:Fish in salt crust-01.jpg, Fish in a salt crust
File:Fish cellars at Church Cove - geograph.org.uk - 824054.jpg, Fish cellars at Church Cove, England, used for pressing salted pilchards into barrels for storage and export to the continent
File:Koserower Salzhütten 001.jpg, Salt cabin, a small building where fish is salted, in Koserow, Germany
File:Dried Fish - ଶୁଖୁଆ.jpg, Dried Fish in a market of Odisha

See also

* Cantonese salted fish
* Cured fish
* Salted squid
*Brining
*Dried and salted cod, one of the main preserved sources of protein for centuries around the Atlantic nations
* Gibbing
* Pickling salt
*Spekesild (Cured, salted Atlantic herring)
* Surströmming (Lightly-salted soured Baltic herring)

Notes

References

* Schwartz, RK (2004
"All roads lead to Rome: Roman food production in North Africa"
''Repast'', 20 (4) : 5–6 and 8–9.

{{Authority control

Food preservation
Salted foods