Cassell's dictionary of cookery

take salt by any chance; and even Europeans travelling in this country never feel the want of it. ' Half of this people,' says Galton, ' live solely on pig-nuts, the most worthless and indigestible of food, and requiring to be eaten in excessive quantities to afford nourishment enough to support life.' Their neighbours, the Namaquas, set no store by salt ; the Hottentots of Walfisch Bay ' hardly ever take the trouble to collect it;' and even the wild game in the Swakop do not frequent the salt rocks to lick them as they do in America. " In the colds of Siberia also, as in the heats of Africa, a similar disregard of salt sometimes prevails. ' Most of the Kussians at Borezov,' says one writer, ' eat their food without a particle of salt, though that condiment can be obtained at a trifling cost: a sufficient quantity of it being always kept at the Government magazine and sold at a moderate price.' " The explanation of these cases, so inconsistent with our general experience, is found in the refined instinct of the body itself. When the food we usually eat conveys a sufficiency of salt into the body, it has no occasion for more. It therefore feels no craving for it, shows no liking to it, and takes no trouble to obtain it. And, doubtless, in the kind of food and drink consumed in the Damara country, and by the Russians of Berezov, either more salt than is usual is conveyed into the stomach, or their habits render less salt necessary to them or cause less to be daily removed from their bodies." Salt Fish. — Salt fish requires to be soaked before being dressed, tlie time being regulated by the hardness and dryness of the fish. The water should be changed two or three times during the process, and the fish should be brushed and washed when it is taken out. For very dry fish thirty-six hom's' soaking will be needed, the water being changed at least four times. In ordinary cases twenty-four hours' soaking will be sufficient. It should be remembered that the fish should be put in to soak flesh downwards. Boiled parsnips and egg sauce are the usual accompaniments to salt fish, which is occasionally served also with hardboiled eggs, chopped small, strewn over it. For a change, the fish may be garnished with eggs cut into quarters and parsley. It should be dished on a neatly-folded napkin placed on a hot dish. Salt Fish (a la Maitre d'Hotel).— Boil the fish in the usual way, free the flesh from skin and bone, and tear it into flakes. Mix a dessert-spoonful of flour smoothly with two or three ounces of good butter. Stir them in a clean saucepan till the butter is dissolved, then add a pinch of salt and the third of a pint of boiling water. Stir the whole over the fire for a few minutes, and add a table-spoonful of chilli vinegar and a table-spoonful of chopped parsley. Let all boil up once. Put the flaked fish into a saucepan, pour the sauce over it, and stir it over a gentle fire till it is quite hot. Turn it upon a hot dish, put round it boiled parsnips or mashed potatoes, and serve. The remains of cold salt fish may be dressed in this way. Time, a few minutes to heat the fish in SAL ( 820 ) SAL tho sauce. Probable cost, 4d. to lOd. per pound. Sufficient, one pound for three or four persons.