[Sca-cooks] Kippers and Toad-in-the-hole

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach taffy at netspace.net.au:
>I beleive Kippers are herrings or Mackrel that have been Kippered (A type of
>cooking)
>
>Kipper fillets that we get here in Lochac are about 8-12 inches long and 3-4
>inches wide
>
>Cheers
>Dafydd
>(Lochac)

Kippering is a salting-and-cold-smoking process; the default fish,
when you say, "Kippers," is herring, split (IIRC) up the belly side,
cut past the rib bones along one side of the spine, and the fish
opened up like a book. The fish are tied together in pairs by the
tails, then hung over a stick in the smokehouse. 8-12 inches long is
about right, and I think the width above is the result of that
splitting/opening process.

I'd be very curious, if someone has access to an OED, as to the
origin of the name; it occurs to me that Norwegian klippfisk are also
split that way. Do you get actual fillets in Lochac? That's something
we usually don't see in the U.S.; we get the split, headless fish
(usually from Scotland, I think) in cryovac plastic, and various
canned/tinned products (usually rather inexpertly skinned and
filleted).

Adamantius