Baked Fish

History

Baked Fish is a recipe from Abby Fisher's "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking" (San Francisco, 1881) — among the earliest cookbooks written by an African-American author. Born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in June 1831 to Abbie Clifton, Fisher settled in San Francisco after emancipation and built a respected pickle-and-preserves business; unable to read or write, she dictated her recipes for the book, which was awarded medals at California fairs. Genealogical research in San Francisco records identifies her father as James J. Andrews, an Orangeburg planter who held some seventy people in slavery, and an 1869 receipt from the Freedman's Savings and Trust in Mobile records her under her mother's name. Before 1865, censuses recorded only an enslaver's name with the age and sex of those he held, so no surviving record names Fisher herself; Karen Hess, who rediscovered her book, noted that absence of documentation.

As she gives the dish, a cleaned fish is salted and peppered inside and out and left to rest, then stuffed with a warmed dressing of grated stale bread, butter and lard, onion, and parsley, sewn shut, set in a little water, and baked in a moderate oven, basted with butter until the top browns.

Beyond its appearance in Fisher's book, the historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular preparation. What it does record is the dish's place in the Southern cooking Fisher had mastered and set down in her own name — a tradition in which cooks like her, many of them enslaved or formerly enslaved, were its authorities, not adapters of someone else's technique.

Ingredients

• 1 whole Fish
• Salt
• Pepper
• Stale bread
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1 tablespoon Lard
• 1 slice Onion
• 4 sprigs Parsley
• 1/2 teacup Water

Instructions

1. Clean the fish thoroughly.
2. Salt and pepper the fish inside and out, and let it rest for two to three hours before stuffing and baking.
3. Grate enough stale bread to fill the fish.
4. Heat the bread in a skillet on the fire, then add one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of lard.
5. Chop one slice of onion and four sprigs of parsley fine and add to the mixture.
6. Season the stuffing with pepper and salt.
7. Let the stuffing cook for five to ten minutes, stirring constantly to keep it from burning.
8. Stuff the fish completely full.
9. Sew the fish up with a needle and thread.
10. Pour about half a teacup of water into the bottom of the baking pan.
11. Place the fish in a medium hot stove to bake.
12. While the fish bakes, baste or spread a little butter on top until it browns.
13. When the top is browned, the fish is ready for the table.