Fish barn with fish drying in the sun –Van Gogh 1882
Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it.Drying is a method offood preservation that works by removingwater from the food, which inhibits the growth ofmicroorganisms. Open air drying using sun and wind has been practiced sinceancient times to preserve food.[1] Water is usually removed byevaporation (air drying, sun drying, smoking or wind drying) but, in the case offreeze-drying, food is firstfrozen and then the water is removed bysublimation. Bacteria, yeasts and molds need the water in the food to grow, and drying effectively prevents them from surviving in the food.
Fish arepreserved through such traditional methods as drying,smoking andsalting.[2] The oldest traditional way of preserving fish was to let the wind and sun dry it.Drying food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage life of several years. The method is cheap and effective in suitable climates; the work can be done by the fisherman and family, and the resulting product is easily transported to market.
Stockfish is unsalted fish, especiallycod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks on the foreshore. The drying racks are known asfish flakes. Cod is the most common fish used in stockfish production, though otherwhitefish, such aspollock,haddock,ling andcusk, are also used.
Over the centuries, several variants of dried fish have evolved. Stockfish, dried as fresh fish and not salted, is often confused withclipfish, where the fish is salted before drying. After 2–3 weeks in salt the fish has saltmatured, and is transformed from wet salted fish to Clipfish through a drying process. The salted fish was earlier dried on rocks (clips) on the foreshore. The production method of Clipfish (or Bacalhau in Portuguese) was developed by the Portuguese who first mined salt near the brackish water of Aveiro, and brought it to Newfoundland where cod was available in massive quantities. (q.v.).Salting was not economically feasible until the 17th century, when cheap salt from southern Europe became available to the maritime nations of northern Europe.
Stockfish is cured in a process calledfermentation where cold adapted bacteria matures the fish, similar to the maturing process of cheese. Clipfish is processed in a chemical curing process called saltmaturing, similar to the maturing processes of other saltmatured products like theParma ham.
Ikan asin cabe ijo, salted dried fish served with green chili, anIndonesian dishKeumamah, traditionalAcehnese dried fish[3]Dried fish and octopus in Aceh, IndonesiaDried fish on sale in Kyrgyzstan
Bacalhau is thePortuguese word forcodfish and in a culinary context refers to dried and salted codfish. Fresh (unsalted) cod is referred to asbacalhau fresco (fresh cod). Bacalhau dishes are common inPortugal andGalicia, in the northwest of Spain, and to a lesser extent in former Portuguese colonies likeAngola,Macau, andBrazil. There are said to be over 1000 recipes in Portugal alone and it can be considered the iconic ingredient of Portuguese cuisine (but curiously the only fish that is not consumed fresh in this fish-loving nation). It is often cooked on social occasions and is the Portuguese traditional Christmas dinner in some parts of Portugal.
Mackerel (Sukho Bangdo inKonkani language) is dried inGoa since ancient times. If preserved well they can stay for many years.Prawn and shark are also dried in Goa.
Baccalà (inVenetian language: bacalà) is sun-dried stockfish, rather than salt cod. In other parts of Italy dishes made with salt cod are given the same name. Baccalà dishes made with stockfish are soaked for several days to soften the fish. Salt cod, which is already soft, is also soaked to remove excess salt.
Balyk is the Russian term for the salted and dried soft parts of fish of large valuable species, such assturgeon orsalmon. Over time, the term has come to apply also tosmoked fish of these species.
Boknafisk is a variant ofstockfish and is unsalted fish partially dried by sun and wind on drying flakes or on a wall. The most common fish used for boknafisk iscod, but other types of fish can also be used. Ifherring is used, the dish is calledboknasild.
Daing (also known asbulad ortuyô) refers to sun-dried fish in thePhilippines. Almost any kind of fish is used, but the most popular variant usesrabbitfish (locally known asdanggit). Cuttlefish and squid may also dried this way[4] The amount of drying can vary. In thelabtingaw variant, the drying period only lasts a few hours, allowing the fish to retain some moisture and texture.[5] In thelamayo variant, the fish isn't dried at all, but simply marinated in vinegar, garlic and spices.[6]
Fesikh is a traditional Egyptian fish dish consisting of fermented salted and dried gray mullet, of themugil family, a saltwater fish that lives in both the Mediterranean and the Red Seas.[7] The traditional process of preparing it is to dry the fish in the sun before preserving it in salt.
Gwamegi is aKorean half-driedPacific herring orPacific saury made during winter. It is mostly eaten in the region ofNorth Gyeongsang Province such asPohang,Uljin, andYeongdeok where a large amount of the fish are harvested. Guryongpo Harbor in Pohang is the most famous.[8][9][10] Fresh herring or saury is frozen at -10 degrees Celsius and is placed outdoors in December to repeat freezing at night and thawing in the day. The process continues until the water content of the fish drops to approximately 40%.[11]
Hákarl is an Icelandic food consisting of asleeper shark that has been fermented and dried for four or five months.
Harðfiskur is the Icelandic term for dried fish (stockfish), a delicacy in Iceland (eaten as is or usually with butter). A type of wind-dried fish, called skreið, also dried but including the head, is no longer eaten domestically in modern times but is sold mostly to Nigeria where it is used in soup.
Mojama (Spain) consists of filleted salt-cured tuna. The wordmojama comes from theArabicmusama (dry), but its origins arePhoenician, specifically fromGdr (Gadir,Cádiz today), the first Phoenician settlement in the WesternMediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians had learned to dry tuna in sea salt so they could trade it. Mojama is made by curing tuna in salt for two days. The salt is then removed, the tuna is washed and then laid out to dry in the sun and the breeze (according to the traditional method) for fifteen to twenty days.
Niboshi is the Japanese name for dried infant sardines that are both eaten as a snack and used to make soup stock. They are also eaten in Korea.
Obambo is driedtilapia, prepared by cutting the fish open and drying it in the sun for several days.[13] It is popular among theLuo andLuhya tribes, who live along the shores ofLake Victoria in Kenya. Traditionally, fishing was strictly forbidden during the rainy seasons, and people relied on obambo caught earlier and preserved.[14]
Karuvadu is dried fish, prepared by sun drying it for several days. This procedure is traditionally seen in coast of Tamil Nadu in India. Various species of fish are sundried and storage timeline of these dried fishes varies from several months to years based on species.
Tatami Iwashi is a Japanese processed food product made from babysardines laid out and dried while entwined in a single layer to form a large mat-like sheet. Typically, this is done by drying them in the sun on a bamboo frame, a process that is evocative of the manufacture of traditionalJapanese paper.
Bokkoms is whole, salted and driedmullet and is a well-known delicacy from the West Coast region of South Africa. This salted fish is dried in the sun and wind and is eaten after peeling off the skin. In some cases it is also smoked.
Thewater activity, aw, in a fish is defined as the ratio of thewater 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 aw. Traditionally, techniques such asdrying,salting andsmoking have been used, and have been used for thousands of years. These techniques can be very simple, for example, by using solar drying. In more recent times,freeze-drying, water bindinghumectants, and fully automated equipment with temperature and humidity control have been added. Often a combination of these techniques is used.[15]
Salt cod has been produced for at least 500 years, since the time of the European discoveries of theNew World. Beforerefrigeration, there was a need to preserve the codfish;drying and salting are ancient techniques to preserve nutrients and the process makes the codfish tastier.
The Portuguese tried to use this method of drying and salting on several varieties of fish from their waters, but the ideal fish came from much further north. With the "discovery" of Newfoundland in 1497, long after theBasquewhalers arrived inChannel-Port aux Basques[citation needed], they started fishing its cod-richGrand Banks. Thus,bacalhau became a staple of thePortuguese cuisine, nicknamedFiel amigo (faithful friend). From the 18th century, the town ofKristiansund inNorway became an important place of purchasingbacalhau orklippfisk (literally "cliff fish", since the fish was dried on stone cliffs by the sea to begin with.) Since the method was introduced by the Dutchman Jappe Ippes around 1690, the town had produced klippfisk and when the Spanish merchants arrived, it became a big industry. The bacalhau or bacalao dish is sometimes said to originate from Kristiansund, where it was introduced by the Spanish and Portuguese fish buyers and became very popular. Bacalao was common food in northwest Norway to this day, as it was cheap to make. In more recent years, it has become less of an everyday staple and mostly eaten on special occasions.
This dish was also popular in Portugal and other Roman Catholic countries, because of the many days (Fridays,Lent, and other festivals) on which the Church forbade the eating of meat.Bacalhau dishes were eaten instead.[16]
^Simon Okumba Miruka (2001).Oral Literature of the Luo. East African Publishers. p. 40.ISBN978-9966-25-086-5.
^Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng (2008). "Comparative capitalism and sustainable development: Stakeholder capitalism and co-management in the Kenyan fisheries sub sector".Natural Resources Forum.32 (1):64–76.doi:10.1111/j.1477-8947.2008.00168.x.
^FAO:Preservation techniques Fisheries and aquaculture department, Rome. Updated 27 May 2005. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
