[Sca-cooks] Dried fish question

[Terry Decker]

An entry in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and 
Ireland provides that tirrihk fish came from Lake Van in Anatolia.

https://books.google.com/books?id=_lymSEkeqEkC&pg=PA985&lpg=PA985&dq=tirikh+fish&source=bl&ots=N3nttsRmZw&sig=84ns43XwixdD8RdpVgP_1wnmPZg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAWoVChMIvIDh6YbpxwIVA02SCh0AqAjb#v=onepage&q=tirikh%20fish&f=false

Lake Van is a closed salt water lake.  The only fish know in its waters is 
Chalcalburnus tarichi, more modernly Alburnus tarichi,  AKA pearl mullet, 
inci kefali.    A. tarichi is only found in Lake Van.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Van
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alburnus_tarichi

Bear



1. Does anyone have any information on what tirrikh were like, hence
what varieties of fish would be closest? Perry, in an old correspondence
I had with him, mentioned that salted fish from the relevant lake are
still sold in Istanbul under the name "kefal," which is the name of the
grey mullet. He doesn't know if what are now sold are the same as what
were called tirikh, and the grey mullet is a salt water fish, but it at
least suggests the possibility of looking for a fresh water fish in some
way similar to the mullet. Of course, even if I did that, I would still
have the problem of figuring out what kind of fish are in the packages
of dried fish in the Chinese grocery store.

-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/