Kipper

Kippered "split" herring.

This article is about the fish. For the cartoon character, see Kipper the Dog.

A kipper, is a whole fish that has been split from tail to head, gutted, salted, and cold smoked.

Typically, the species is a herring, mackerel or salmon, but traditionally it is any fish found in great numbers and caught during its spawning period. Spawning fish are not good to eat fresh and usually arrive in great abundance, thus they are salted and smoked to improve flavor and preservation.

A red herring is a whole unsplit fish. Red herring can be served cold, sliced thinly across the body with new bread and butter or a salad as a starter. In the UK and the eastern seaboard of North America they are often eaten grilled for breakfast. In the UK kippers, along with other preserved fish such as the bloater, were also once commonly enjoyed as a high tea or supper treat; most popularly with inland and urban working-class populations before World War II.

Origin

The Old English origin of the word has various parallels, such as Icelandic kippa which means "to pull, snatch" and the Danish word kippen which means "to seize, to snatch". Similarly, the English kipe denotes a basket used to catch fish. Another theory traces the word kipper to the kip, or small beak, that male salmon develop during the breeding season.

This photo shows the place, in a street about 50m from Seahouses harbour, where the kipper "accident" in 1843 is said to have occurred.

The exact origin of kippers is unknown, though fish have been slit, gutted and smoked since time immemorial. According to Mark Kurlansky, "Smoked foods almost always carry with them legends about their having been created by accident - usually the peasant hung the food too close to the fire, and then, imagine his surprise the next morning when...". One example of this legendary origin can be found in the story of John Woodger at Seahouses in Northumberland, England around 1843, in which kippering happened accidentally, when fish for processing was left overnight in a room with a smoking stove. We know this to be false because the origin of the word kipper is Old English; the English philologist and ethnographer Walter William Skeat derives it from the Old English kippian, to spawn. We know smoking and salting of fish—in particular of spawning salmon and herring which are caught in large numbers in a short time and can be made suitable for edible storage by this practice—predates 19th Century Britain and indeed written history, probably going back as long as man has been using salt to preserve food. We also know kippered fish were eaten in Germany and reached Scandinavia sometime during the Middle Ages.

As a verb, to kipper means to preserve by rubbing with salt or other spices before drying in the open air or in smoke. So beef or other meat preserved in the same fashion can reasonably be called "kippered."

Preparations

"Cold smoked" fish, that have not been salted for preservation, need to be cooked before being eaten safely (they can be boiled, fried, grilled, jugged or roasted, for instance). "Kipper snacks," (see below) are precooked and may be eaten without further preparation.

In the United Kingdom, kippers are most often served at breakfast. In the United States, where kippers are less commonly eaten than in the UK, they are almost always sold as either canned "kipper snacks" or in jars found in the refrigerated foods section. The John West brand of canned kipper fillets is a commonly found item in stores or supermarket sections devoted to imported British foodstuffs.

Regional variations

The Manx word for kipper is [skeddan jiarg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) which literally translates as red herring.

File:Kippered Herring can190g Appel.jpg

Canned Kippered herring from Germany

A kipper is also sometimes referred to as a "red herring", although particularly strong curing is required to produce a truly red kipper. This term can be dated to the late Middle Ages as quoted here c1400 Femina (Trin-C B.14.40) 27: He eteþ no ffyssh But heryng red. Samuel Pepys used it in his diary entry of 28 February 1660 "Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before."

Kipper time is the season in which fishing for salmon is forbidden in Great Britain, originally the period (May 3 to January 6) in the River Thames, by an Act of Parliament.

Kipper season refers (particularly among fairground workers, market workers, taxi drivers and the like) to any lean period in trade, particularly the first three or four months of the year; possibly a reference to the above usage, or to the need to live frugally during such a period, by (for instance) living off kippers.

Kippers today are extremely popular in the Isle of Man where thousands are produced annually in the town of Peel where two kipper houses smoke herring and export them to the world: Moore's Kipper Yard and Devereau and Son A kipper meal is known as tatties and herrin in the Scottish Lowlands and spuds and herrin in the Isle of Man, where kippers are usually served with potatoes and buttered bread.

Mallaig, the once busiest herring port in Europe is famous for its traditionally smoked kippers. Today only one traditional smokehouse remains. J. Lawrie and sons or "Jaffy's" as many may know them are a family run smokehouse on the west coast of Scotland. Over sixty years they have handed down timeless, traditional methods through four generations.

The small village of Craster in Northumberland, England, is world famous for its herring kippers which are still made in traditional smokehouses. The only difference is that the fish themselves now come from the Atlantic, instead of local waters.

In the Philippines, smoked fish varieties called tinapa are served traditionally with salted egg, tomato slices, and garlic fried rice.

See also

• bloater
• böckling, Swedish hot smoked herring
• food preservation
• curing
• red herring
• smoking
• Finnan Haddie

External links

• "The lure of red herring", history of smoked fish varieties.
• History of fish smoking
• Isle of Man Kipper Museum