The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-11-26
SARDINES.
How They are Caught and Prepared for
Market.

How They are Caught and Prepared fOI
Market.
The sardine fishery, with all its at
tendant industrial activities, is one
of the important business features Of
the coast of France. There are indica.
tlons, however, that these toothsome
little fish are either becoming scarce OIL
else less easily caught than aforetime
for the yield grows less every year, both
IN the aggregate quantity obtained and
the average caught per bost The fish
cry Is prosecuted from April to Octo-
Der, and furnishes employment to some
10000 sailors, with their 3, $40 boats, Oh
the water, and some 19, 600 men, women
and children on land, in preparing the
fish for market. Every year shows q
dlminution in the catch and advance in
the price. This is shown by a table,
recently published, which gives the
figures of the sardine fishery for the
past thirty years, and exhibits the an
nual decline in quantity caught and the
corresponding advance in market price.
Whereas, from 1910 to 1S49, the aver
age catch per boat was S35, 600 fish. and
their price about one dollar per ], 900,
the catch last year averaged only 65.-
600 fish per boat, and the price has
mounted up TO some eight dollars and a
half per 1000 fab. It is, therefore,
quite probable that, unless some change
soon comes, sardines will take their
place among epicurean rarities, and
will command that peculiar respect
which, while SO numerOusly and cheap
ly procured, they have failed to compel.
The preparation of sardines for mar
ket IS quite an interesting performance,
and is mostly done by women and chill
dren who leave country homes to spend
the sardine season" on the coast.
These do all the handling of the fish
from the time they leave the boats un.
til they are ready to be finally soldered
up in their boxes. They work ten
hours day, as a rule, and may do as
much overwork as tneY choose, at from
three to four and half cents an hour.
They usually make sixteen hours a days
work, and as they are free to eat as
many sardines as they want (although
expected to " find themselves" in all
other respects), they generally manage
to make enough during the sardine sea
son to keep their families through the
winter. They sleep in an outhouse oil
the shanty description, and supply then
own beds and do all their own house.
keeping.
The condition precedent" first catch
your fish having been complied with
the sardines are taken to the workshop
where they are at once salted, which is
done by throwing into each basket few
handfuls of rock salt, and shaking the
basket so that the salt shall reach every
fish. Then they are spread out upoI
tables covered with zinc and left there
three or four hours, to allow all liquid
to drain off. Next they are decapitated
and deprived of their insides by means
of sharp knives, which are made tC
operate with wonderful dexterity IL
the hands of these female and infantile
experts. Washing with sea water is the
next process, after which the fish are
placed tails up, in q wire basket of 20C
sardines capacity, which is hung up il
the open air for several hours, until it,
contents are dried. Frying comes mex
! in order, and this is done, not in theil
own fat, of which the fish have no su
! perabundance, but in the best kind o.
! olive oil, in pans each just large enougl
/ to hold one of the wire baskets. Here
/ they simmer in the boiling oil from fiv,
| to ten minutes until bv testing they ar,
| found to be cooked. This testing con
! sists in taking ont fish AMI breaking i
] in two, when, if 1t is white and tht
backbone quickly detaches itself, tb,
! fish is considered cooked and the bas
ket is taking from the pan.
After cooking, the baskets of fish ar
| taken away and hung Just over a zin
! table for three or four hours, wher
they drip until perfectly dry, and an
then placed before the women who d.
the packing. This is the only handling
they get after being stood up to dry a
previously described. They are no,
taken ont of the baskets one by one an,
laid in the boxes, literally sardine fash
ion, and are overfowed with pure, fres
olive oil. AS the fish absorb a porto
of the oil, there is no stinting of tn
deluge they receive. The boxes the
pass to the hands of the solderer, VIII
operates with an iron kept hot by a gas
burner " in it's midst, connected bv
rubber tube with the gas pipes, an
having before him a table so arrange
as to revolve and save time in mRnipI
lating the boxes. The process of solC
ering is swift and systematic, siDgl
revolution of the iron completing Ii
job.
.. A final touch is the depositing of I'll
boxes, 500 or 1000 at once, in a va
where they are made to boil ten or Fl
teen minutes. After this they are pI
away for a day or two in a room, in o
der to see if any fermentation is likel
to take place, and then they are take
to a room knee-deep with saw-dus
where a swarm of girls are ready to ru
them with sawdust until all the oil
wiped off and the boxes are as bright
can be. Then they go to the packing
room, and thereafter to the place al
pointed for all good sardines.