Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1887 — Fish as Food. [ARTICLE]

Fish as Food.

Fish has always, within historical times, been an important article of diet. In some parts of the world it is the staple article of food. The huge shellheaps in Europe and America, the remains of tribal feasts in periods long anterior to, written records, show how greatly shell-fish entered into the diet of aboriginal races. Fish is cheap. It furnishes to most people an agreeable change with meat. Salted and dried, it is in season at any time of the year, and can be exported to regions where fresh fish is unknown or rare. It is held by some authorities that fish contains elements of special value as food for the brain, nerves, and bones. But, in the matter of diet, we need always to plan for weak stomachs. There is a difference of digestibility in fish. Some contain a large proportion of oil, and are therefore of more value to such as can digest them. Others are comparatively free from oil. There is much difference also in the muscular fiber of fish, which in some are short and tender. Salt fish is more difficult of digestion than fresh. The manner of cooking fish makes a difference iff digestibility. Fish fried in butter is easier digested than fish fried in ordinary fat; boiled it is still easier, and steamed it is easier still.

It is a common belief that fish is a very good dish for the sick, when convalescing. But a writer in the Lancet has found cases frequently occurring in his practice in which a dish of it had been followed by dangerous and even fatal, relapses, and he had become accustomed to restrain its use. He afterwards, however, concluded that the sole difficulty was in the cooking. He says: “For this hint lam indebted to the intelligence of a patient. I had, as usual, forbidden fish, and explained my reasons. I was told that fish steamed, as was done in that house, was tender, and never disagreed with the patient, but was partaken of with relish and benefit. I got a steamer for myself, have since recommended this plan of cookery to my patients, and have had satisfactory results. Dieting is the half, and sometimes the best half of nledical treatment; and perhaps, a little to my chagrin, I find that this system of preparing fish has been specially recommended by t various schools of cookery ."-Companion. ,