The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-09-06
ARTIFICIALLY RAISED FOOD.
Som ethins About the Fish we Eat and Thinl
1t so Nice.

our exchanges-indeed, it is one of thos'
thoughtlessly scissored and pastet
things doomed to 60 the rounds OF tn
press and return in year or two for (
fresh start, translated from the Toxic
IHunderer. Here it is:
"Wrap trout in brown paper, put i
in the ashes with few Live Goals atop
and in fifteen minutes it will be disl
fit for king"
Fit for king Of the cannibal islands
possibly, for when man possessing
reason considers whereof brown paper i
made, and wherewith it is oolored, ant
then imagines such ingredients perme
ating and favoring the delicate sub
stance of the most delicate of fsh, tn
operation can only be ftly ikened t.
wrapping q reed bird in worm eatel
seed-leaf tobacco and baking it in
limekiln. As brook trout, however, ar
to-day quoted in New Yorkat one dolla
a pound, most Of the families whicl
might be tempted by this pestiferou
paragraph into sin, will find the brown
paper more easily come at than tn
brook trout.
This "brook trout" business, how
ever, is q mere fiction, OF one origil
with the disreputable practice of dub
bing any big, bloated, watery oyster Z.
"saddle-rock," the real, old-time "Sad
dle-rock" being at least as rare nova
days as an angels visit or o mealy po
tato. What with bushels Of lime
emptied at the heads Of streams to drive
the fish to the nets below, and cookie
cindering and other pot-fshing infa
mics, there is not living brook trout to
day within miles upon miles Of the city
The favored few to whom it has been re-
vealed under the most solemn and awfu
pledges OF secrecy, know of trout
brook or two up in New Hampshire and
Vermont and down in Pennsylvania,
But most of the trout brought to this
market are artifcially raised-spawned
and milted by hand in fshhouses, and
thereafter brought up in not over cool
or clean, shallow and springless ponds.
hThey are fed almost exclusively on cold
boiled liver, chopped fine, and this food
the Door silly fish, knowing nothing OF
their natural nutriment, voraciously de-
vour and assimilate until their own sub
stance becomes something which is
really and literally neithe- fish, flesh,
fowl nor good red herring.
Instead of the hard f1eshed, wild fla
vored, gamy, genuine brook trout, sim
pie citizens set upon their tables fab
BY fish as soft and nearly as tasteless as
q pond sucker. We used to hear stories
of men who were hired by the season to
fish I" in the Adirondacks " for the Sara
toga hotels, while in fact Gridley's ponds
lay within q mile of the hotels, and he
had constantly on hand from 1000 to
5000 pond, not brook, trout Of his own
raising, and weighing from three-quar-
ters to a pound and a quarter each, &C
cording to their age, Of from two to
three years. He used to charge city
Waltons q dollar q pound, the market
price, for the privilege and presumed
pleasure of choking out" half dozen
or SO trout that might have been Lifted
out in ones hand; for their tameness,
as Selkirk is made by the poet to say,
WAS positively "shocking." OF course
it would be unfair to class with such fish
Seth Green's artifcially procured spawn,
which, as spawn or young fish, are con-
signed to their natural stream, food and
condition, and attain table fitness In a
natural way. But for this process, as
everybody knows, the salmon streams Of
Scotland, Wales and Ireland would long
ago have been fished out. What our
markets and most OF our restaurants dis
play as "brook trout" are trout only In
a certain outside resemblance to the
original, for in all other respects they
are fishy frauds. It is question
whether cultivation is not as fatal to
some kinds of food as civilization has
been to certain tribes of men, for in
stance the Polynesians. Of course we
shall be told of the high perfection to
which crossing, culture and feeding have
brought our great "butchers' meats,
such as beef and mutton; but even with
these tho tendency has been to pile on
fat at the expense of fine fiber and fla
vor.
Arti6cially bred and fed fish, at least,
certainly are failure-a failure thus far
ss cheap food, and a dead failure as
Injuries. The truth is, that all game to
be "gaue" must have lived In It's
natural state and on it's natural food.
Every farmers boy knows that quail or
partridge eggs hatched under hen, the
wing clipped birds thereafter being
brought up in the barnyard, eventually
come to the table with next to none OF
the flavor which the buds and berries
give to the flesh Of the wild birds. On
the other hand. hens which have hid
away and Matched their nests have Pro
duced chickens which actually grew up
on forest food, and when subsequently
caught, killed and cooked, were found
to possess the game flavor OF the prairie
chicken. Not that the prairie chicken,
by the way, is anything to boast OF IN
tie way Of table luxury, particularly
when served up in hotel style, with a
sauce of fine shot with which 1t was
killed.
A little wholesome scientific inquiry
into the deterioration and general good,
for-nothingness of most artihcially raised
food will be found good Investment by
self.esteemed epicures who paw dollar
pound for soft, spotted, poud frauds,
brazenly advertised as "genuine brook
front" Such are indeed fit to be
wrapped in brown paper, put in the
ashes, with live Goals atop" and left
there, not for fifteen minutes-but for
fifteen hours