Alexandria Gazette

HOW TO COOK A BLACK-FISH.
From the New York American.

Courteous and gentle reader, before the correctly printed column of my favorite journal now presents itself, as thou turnest calmly away from discussions of mere currency, impost, and territorial or nest fluvial designations, didst thou ever partake of a thoroughly well dressed black fish? I anticipate thine unhesitating, but perhaps uncautious, answer--"certainly." Then let me tell thee, that at the moment when thy fork was first flourished over the happy plate, in the centre of which lay the delicious portion, the star of thy destiny was in the ascendant: and that the day itself should henceforth be to thee an alba dies in the history of sublunary enjoyment!

"To live with fame
The Gods allow to many. but to dine
Upon a well cook'd black-fish is a blessing,
Jove, among the choicest of his boons, reserves,
Which but on few his sparing hand bestows!"

My lamented friend, the late Alderman B., once observed to me, that although the market abounded in them, "his youth was gone before he knew what that fish was!" I was staying, said he, at a farm house on Long Island, surrounded by a shady orchard, with the barn-yard within a few steps, so that you could always hear from the hen herself the right time to get a fresh egg. We had got down from town in the afternoon, had had a charming ride, the weather warm, but not uncomfortable, the night fine, my room was on the lower floor with the window a little up, and we all breathing blossoms! Should you not have thought I could have slept soundly? Sir, there was a cock in the barn!--a pretty bird. but a wonderfully noisy one. if he had cried fire! I suppose I should have slept on, but making such an unaccountable noise. such as I was no wise use to in the night:--I was forced to get up. and so we got the people up, and I took an uncommon early breakfast. I did not, upon the whole, regret it, when I was seated upon the stoop with my segar, and the morning breaking beautifully all around, with a slight movement upon the surf as if there had been a wind in the offing. and the smoke rising up by the side of some dark rocks upon the shore in the distance. The farmer said that the fishermen were preparing their breakfast, and, as I had finished my segar and wanted to walk. I thought I would go down and see what sort of fare they were making it of. It was a pretty long pull so that they had nearly finished before I arrived. They asked me if I had come to breakfast? They were in the nook of the rocks. with nothing but a few coals of fire, a square bit of board. a small tool box, a paper of salt, a roll of fresh butter. a biscuit or two, a pepper-castor, and a basket of black-fish; but they were so pleasant that I hated to say no, and so I said yes. The head man--they were all three nice, young, handsome fellows. I wish they had all three been my sons, and I could not help telling them so at the time--the head man chose a fish out of the basket: it had an eye like a seal: and a skin as black as a wolf's throat. rich pouting lips, and almost as thick down at the lower dorsal fin as he was across the shoulders; it was a pleasure to look at him as he lay quite satisfied like in the hands of a man that knew how to take hold of him; he breathed a breath or two, and each time such gills! if ever you have seen a pomegranate in your life opened in the heart, you know the true color of the gills of a first rate black fish. The skipper laid him upon the board as if he had been helping himself to jelly, so balanced and quiet was his one hand. while with the other he took up his knife. There's a natural division in the middle of the upper jaw of a black fish just broad enough for a sharp knife to enter. he touched him there with the edge, and before you could say Jack Robinson. the fish was cut down the back to the flapper of the tail, the board turned over, and he opened, tacked and toasting. inside out-wards, before the coals. As soon as he was done, the fisherman took a small piece of the yellow fresh butter and spread it over the fish, threw a cast of black pepper over him, and "your fish is ready." said he. Some salt, said I. Yes. but eat your salt always in crystals, and put it on the last thing, otherwise it is salt-water. and not salt that you take into your mouth; remember that all your life. Well. Alderman did you eat the fish? The fish! I scooped two of them out of their jackets, and I have been growing fat from that day.

But is this the way to cook a Black-fish? Gentle reader. it is not; it is a way, but it is not the way. Then what is the meaning of all this cock and bull story about a Barn and an Alderman? It is merely to introduce you to the fish, which in another essay I propose to teach you how to cook. In the mean time. the limits of the paper, as the Editors say, force me reluctantly to bid thee, Adieu.

BY Evis.