Forgotten art of corning preserves fish for months

When it comes to eating fish, how old is too old?

One day? Five? Seven?

Jim Merritt eats spot that has been sitting in the garage for months. Make that corned spot.

Corning is an old-fashioned method of preserving fish in salt brine, and the corned fish doesn't require refrigeration or freezing. Merritt, owner of The Catch Seafood at Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk, learned to corn spot from his father.

"Sixty or 70 years ago, people got casks of salted spot for the winter," Merritt said. "It was like putting bacon away."

The Norfolk native recalls that he and his dad would corn 50 pounds of spot for the winter. It was "a great deal of work," Merritt said, but it meant spot on center stage for breakfasts and suppers throughout the winter.

Today, corning fish is a forgotten art, one that Merritt is trying to preserve through classes at his market. He thinks people will be surprised by the simplicity of the process and the flavor of the fish.

"The taste is more complex," Merritt said. "I think it's better than fresh spot."

Anglers hook spot from New Jersey to Texas, but "nowhere are they more plentiful than here on the Chesapeake Bay and in southeastern Virginia," Merritt said.

This fall has been a good spot season, but the recent weather has blown the fish out of here, Merritt said.

Which makes this prime time for corning.

The process is surprisingly simple and will work for most fish. You'll need fresh fish, kosher or other noniodized salt and a plastic container or ceramic crock with a tight-fitting lid.

If you're not catching your own, look for fish with clear eyes, not sunken. The gills should be red, not brown. The flesh should be firm - don't be shy, just poke it. And take a good whiff. It should have a clean sea smell.

The fish should be scaled, beheaded and gutted. No trace of entrails or the black membrane that lines the cavity of the fish should remain. Then the fish should be butterflied, so the maximum amount of flesh will be exposed to the salt.

Merritt, who sells spot for about $2.75 a pound, will prep it for corning at no additional charge.

Once the fish is prepped, sprinkle the bottom of the container with a "heavy dusting" of salt. Lay the fish on the salt and give it a heavy dusting - it is not necessary to completely cover the fish with salt. Continue layering fish and salt.

Seal the container and place it in the refrigerator. After three or four days, the salt should have pulled the water from the fish to create a brine. Keep an eye on the water level, and when it stops rising, open the container and add enough fresh water to cover the fish completely and enough extra salt so that crystals are visible. You want to have the water dissolve as much salt as possible.

The fish is safe to eat when it is "struck through," meaning that the salt has completely penetrated the flesh. To determine if the fish is struck through, press the flesh with your finger.

"It should be firm, hard, like a board," Merritt said.

After that, it no longer requires refrigeration and is ready to eat, although Merritt prefers fish that has been corning for at least a month.

When you are ready to eat the fish, remove as much as you want to eat from the brine and soak it in two changes of fresh water in the refrigerator over a 12-hour period, which will remove some of the salt from the flesh. How long to soak the fish is an art and depends on how large the container is and how many fish are in it.

"You'll get a feel for it after a few times," Merritt said.

Merritt, who has Outer Banks roots on his mother's side, likes his spot dredged in cornmeal and fried in a little bacon grease and oil.

"Back in the day, we boiled it with diced potatoes and onions and then poured bacon grease on top of it. It will drive your blood pressure through the ceiling, but it's good."

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com