Cleaning Codfish

Cod is crimped by being notched with a knife while still partly alive. Some cooks object.

From: The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf
Published: 1896
Yikes Scale: Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1896

It is usual first to remove the gills by cutting their connection with the rest of the head and shoulders and pulling them out. Lay the fish on his back, open the belly by cutting down the center, remove the inside, carefully preserving the liver and roe, and leaving the sounds uninjured. If the fish is to be cooked whole it should be "scored" to the bone transversely at intervals of two inches; but if it is to be cooked in pieces, cut it in slices three inches thick and soak the fish in water for a quarter of an hour. Cod is crimped by being cut up and notched with a knife while partly alive; but some cooks object to this. The following recipes for cooking cod are carefully selected as likely to give sufficient variety to suit all tastes and to all purposes. The fish is usually divided, by the fishmonger, into "head and shoulders," "middle" and "tail;" but although preference may be given to the middle cut, the tail is quite as good, although not so fleshy, and the head yields in quantity the gelatine that makes excellent soup. Codlings are for the most part amenable to the same treatment.

Fillets of Codfish, Hollandaise Take any number of fillets of cod, put in a buttered stewpan, add one gill of stock, season, sprinkle a little fine parsley over, and set in the oven, or on the stove, with a buttered paper over. When done put them upon a dish, bordered with mashed potatoes.

The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf, 1896. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Crimping meant slashing the flesh of a living fish so it would set firm in ice water. The texture it produced was genuinely prized, and it is not something anyone would defend now.

Oscar's own sentence is the interesting part. He notes that some cooks object, which tells you the practice was already contested in the kitchens he knew.

Notes from the 21st century

The firmness was real. Rapid chilling of very fresh muscle does change the texture. Modern handling gets a similar result by killing and icing immediately.
“Sounds” are the swim bladders. Lying along the backbone, prized for gelatine and once salted and sold on their own.
Skip it and lose nothing. A fish killed promptly and iced hard gives you what crimping was for, without the part that makes the recipe hard to read.

Also in this book

Almond Milk — Four ounces of almonds to a pint of water — “either bitter or sweet,” says Oscar, as though it made no difference.
Braised Calf's Head (with Calf's Head, Financiere) — Boned, stuffed and sewn shut — and the Financière version forms the brains into cakes and skewers cockscombs on top.
Crabs (to boil) — Boiled alive from cold, slowly, specifically so they do not throw off their claws.

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