kipper

{{About|a type of smoked herring|other usages|kipper (disambiguation)}}

A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish,{{cite news |url = http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2004/jun/oilyfishdefinition |title = What's an oily fish? |date = 24 June 2004 |publisher = Food Standards Agency |access-date = 29 May 2009 |archive-date = 10 December 2010 |archive-url = http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20101210005807/http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2004/jun/oilyfishdefinition |url-status = dead }} that has been split in a butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smouldering wood chips (typically oak).

In the United Kingdom, Ireland and some regions of North America, kippers are most commonly eaten for breakfast. In the United Kingdom, kippers, along with other preserved smoked or salted fish such as the bloater and buckling, 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.

Terminology

The word is thought to derive from the Old English cypera, or copper, based on the colour of the fish.{{Cite web |title=kipper {{!}} Etymology, origin and meaning of kipper by etymonline |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/kipper |access-date=2023-08-06 |website=www.etymonline.com |language=en}} The word has various possible parallels, such as Icelandic kippa which means "to pull, snatch" and the Germanic word kippen which means "to tilt, to incline". Similarly, the Middle 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.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

As a verb, kippering ("to kipper") means to preserve by rubbing with salt or other spices before drying in the open air or in smoke.

Originally applied to the preservation of surplus fish (particularly those known as "kips," harvested during spawning runs), kippering has come to mean the preservation of any fish, poultry, beef or other meat in like manner. The process is usually enhanced by cleaning, filleting, butterflying or slicing the food to expose maximum surface area to the drying and preservative agents.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

=Kippers, bloaters, and bucklings=

All three are types of smoked herring. Kippers are split, gutted and then cold-smoked; bloaters are cold-smoked whole; bucklings are hot-smoked whole.{{Cite web |last=Rigby |first=Graeme |date=2019-02-07 |title=BUCKLING |url=https://www.herripedia.com/buckling/ |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=Rigby |first=Graeme |date=2019-02-07 |title=BLOATER |url=https://www.herripedia.com/bloaters/ |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=Rigby |first=Graeme |date=2019-02-08 |title=KIPPER |url=https://www.herripedia.com/kippers/ |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring |language=en-GB}}

Origin

File:Kipperfactoryseahouses.jpg, Northumberland, is one of the places where the practice of kippering herrings is said to have originated.]]

Although the exact origin of the kipper is unknown, this process of slitting, gutting, and smoke-curing fish is well documented.{{NoteTag|The practice of smoking salmon for preservation was seen by Lewis and Clark among American Indians of the Columbia River region.}} 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 …".Mark Kurlansky, 2002. Salt: A World History, {{ISBN|978-0-8027-1373-5}}. For instance Thomas Nashe wrote in 1599 about a fisherman from Lothingland in the Great Yarmouth area who discovered smoking herring by accident.{{Cite book|last=Hone|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PzsHAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA4-PA569|title=The Every-day Book and Table Book|date=1838|publisher=R. Griffin and Company|pages=569–570|volume=III|place=Glasgow}} Another story of the accidental invention of kipper is set in 1843, with John Woodger of Seahouses in Northumberland, when fish for processing was left overnight in a room with a smoking stove.{{Cite book|last=Trewin|first=Carol|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=swU53UBC1LEC&pg=PA51|title=Gourmet Cornwall|date=2005|publisher=Alison Hodge Publishers|isbn=978-0-906720-39-4|page=51}}{{Cite book|last=Davidson|first=Alan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bmQjAQAAIAAJ|title=The Oxford Companion to Food|date=2006|editor1=Alan Davidson|editor2= Tom Jaine

|publisher=Oxford University Press|place= Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-280681-9|page=728}}

Colouring

File:Red herring.jpg

A kipper is also sometimes referred to as a red herring, although particularly strong curing is required to produce a truly red kipper.{{cite web | author=Quinion, Michael | author-link=Michael Quinion | year=2002| title=The Lure of the Red Herring | work=WorldWideWords | url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm | access-date=21 April 2007}}

The term appears in a mid-13th century poem by the Anglo-Norman poet Walter of Bibbesworth, "He eteþ no ffyssh But heryng red."{{Cite book|editor-last=Rothwell|editor-first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hmocAQAAIAAJ|title=Femina: (Trinity College, Cambridge MS B.14.40)|date=2005|publisher=Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub|isbn=978-0-9552124-0-6|page=27|author-link=Walter of Bibbesworth |author-last=Bibbesworth | author-first=Walter de | orig-date= c. 1250}} 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."{{cite web | author=Pepys Samuel | author-link=Samuel Pepys | year=1893| title=The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S. | work=Samuel Pepys' Diary | url=http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/02/28/index.php | access-date=21 February 2006}}

The dyeing of kippers was introduced as an economy measure in the First World War by avoiding the need for the long smoking processes. This allowed the kippers to be sold quickly, easily and for a substantially greater profit. Kippers were originally dyed using a coal tar dye called brown FK (the FK is an abbreviation of "for kippers"), kipper brown or kipper dye. Today, kippers are usually brine-dyed using a natural annatto dye, giving the fish a deeper orange/yellow colour. European Community legislation limits the acceptable daily intake (ADI) of Brown FK to 0.15 mg/kg. Not all fish caught are suitable for the dyeing process, with mature fish more readily sought, because the density of their flesh improves the absorption of the dye. An orange kipper is a kipper that has been dyed orange.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

Kippers from the Isle of Man and some Scottish producers are not dyed; instead, the smoking time is extended in the traditional manner.{{cite web|url=http://www.deliaonline.com/ingredients/ingredients-a-z/Ingredients-j-l/Kippers.html|title=Kippers|access-date=2 March 2016}}

Preparation

File:Kippers at Burton Bradstock.jpg

"Cold-smoked" fish that have not been salted for preservation must be cooked before being eaten safely (they can be boiled, fried, grilled, jugged or roasted, for instance). In general, oily fish are preferred for smoking as the heat is evenly dispersed by the oil, and the flesh resists flaking apart like drier species.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

In the UK, kippers are usually served at breakfast, although their popularity has declined since the Victorian and Edwardian eras.{{cite news |last1=Fearnley-Whittingstall |first1=Hugh |title=Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's herring recipes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/23/herring-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall |newspaper=The Guardian |date=23 January 2010 |access-date=6 June 2023 |quote=When cooking a special breakfast, we often have kippers}}{{cite news |last1=Smithers |first1=Rebecca |title=Kippers, the breakfast dish that fell out of favour, are back on British menus |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/07/food-kippers-smoked-fish-sales-revival |newspaper=The Guardian |date=6 April 2012 |access-date=6 June 2023 |quote=Kippers were the quintessential British breakfast food [...] of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.}}{{cite web |title=kippers |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/kippers |website=britannica.com |access-date=6 June 2023 |quote=an iconic British breakfast dish}}

In the United States, where kippers are much 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. These are precooked and may be eaten without further preparation. {{cite web |title=Kipper Snacks |url=https://www.kingoscar.com/products/kipper-snacks/ |website=kingoscar.com |access-date=14 October 2023}}{{Better source needed|date=December 2024}}

Industry

Kippers produced in the Isle of Man are exported around the world.{{cite web | url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/isleofman/content/articles/2005/10/07/kippers_feature.shtml | title = Isle of Man | publisher = BBC | access-date = 9 May 2012}} Thousands are produced annually in the town of Peel, where two kipper houses, Moore's Kipper Yard (founded 1882) and Devereau and Son (founded 1884), smoke and export herring.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

Mallaig, once the busiest herring port in Europe,{{cite web|url=http://www.mallaigheritage.org.uk/exhibit/mallaig.htm |title=Mallaig and its story |publisher=Mallaig Heritage Centre |access-date=9 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704112754/http://www.mallaigheritage.org.uk/exhibit/mallaig.htm |archive-date= 4 July 2008 }} is famous for its traditionally smoked kippers, as are Stornoway kippers and Loch Fyne kippers. The harbour village of Craster in Northumberland is famed for Craster kippers, which are prepared in a local smokehouse, sold in the village shop and exported around the world.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

Related terms

The Manx word for kipper is {{lang|gv|skeddan jiarg}}, literally red herring; the Irish term is scadán dearg with the same meaning.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

Kipper time is the season in which fishing for salmon in the River Thames in the United Kingdom is forbidden by an Act of Parliament; this period was originally the period 3 May to 6 January but has changed since.{{Cite web |title=Kippers |url=https://www.fao.org/4/x5925e/x5925e01.htm |access-date=2024-06-27 |website=www.fao.org}} 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.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

Members of the Canadian military referred to English people as kippers because they were believed to frequently eat kippers for breakfast.{{Cite book |last=Langeste |first=Tom |title=Words on the wing: slang, aphorisms, catchphrases and jargon of Canadian military aviation since 1914 |publisher=Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies |year=1995 |isbn=0919769535 |pages=161}}

The English (UK) idiom [to be] "stitched (or "done") up like a kipper" is commonly used to describe a situation where a person has (depending on context) been "fitted up" or "framed"; "used", unfairly treated or betrayed; or cheated out of something, with no possibility of correcting the "wrong" done.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

In the children's books The Railway Series, and in the television show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, The Flying Kipper is a nickname for a fast fish train usually pulled by Henry the Green Engine.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}

The United States Department of Agriculture defines "Kippered Beef" as a cured dry product similar to beef jerky but not as dry.{{cite web |url=https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/import/Labeling-Policy-Book.pdf|title=Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book, Aug 2005 |publisher=USDA |access-date=25 July 2021}}

Notes

References

External links

[http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm "The lure of red herring"], history of smoked fish varieties.
[http://www.iomguide.com/kippers.php Isle of Man Kipper Museum]
[http://ssa.nls.uk/search.cfm?search_term=kipper&search_fields=0&search_join_type=AND&search_fuzzy=yes&subject=&location=&personality=&genre=&series=&fiction=&colour=&sound=&year_from=&year_to=&decade=&videos_only=1&search_mode=Advanced&submit=Search+%3E%3E%3E National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE] (archive films relating to the production of kippers)
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20210323175849/http://www.ukfoodguide.net/e154.htm E154 Brown FK]}}
[https://www.theguardian.com/weekend/story/0,,1987905,00.html Source it - Guardian life and style article about kippers]
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/07/food-kippers-smoked-fish-sales-revival Kippers, the breakfast dish that fell out of favour, are back on British menus] The Guardian, 7 April 2012.
[https://www.herripedia.com/kippers/ Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring: Kippers]