Henry William Herbert (1807-1858) was a British expatriate in Canada and the United States, exiled by his family after a youthful scandal. He tried to make a living as a novelist, but his historical fiction made little impression on readers or critics. As Frank Forester, however, he was an originator of the genre of sporting literature in North America, and the book at hand is one of the most notable products of the fictitious Mr. Forester.
Details of our copy can be found here. It is bound in a very appropriate style, with gilt ornaments of fishing paraphernalia on the spine.
“Frank Forester’s Fish and Fishing” is not a comprehensive work, but it succeeds very well in conveying the author’s enthusiasm for what is best in North American angling: salmon, brook trout, pike and a few other fishes are discussed at length, and illustrated very vividly (most of the illustrations are by the author). Together with Herbert’s works on hunting and horsemanship, these fishing tales established sporting books as a viable and respected branch of American writing.
Here is the recipe for salmon à la Forester:
MY OWN RECEIPT FOR BOILING SALMON
If you are ever so lucky as to catch a Salmon, where incontinently you can proceed to cook him, that is to say, in the wilderness, within ten yards of the door of your shantee, with the fire burning and the pot boiling — good!
Stun him at once by a heavy blow on the head; crimp him by a succession of cuts on each side, through the muscle, quite down to the back-bone, with a very sharp knife, in slashes parallel to the gill-cover. Then place him for ten minutes in a cold spring, or under the jet of a water-fall. In the meantime, keep your pot boiling, nay, but screeching with intense heat, filled with brine strong enough to bear an egg. Therein immerse him, having cut out the gills, opened the belly, and washed the inside, and boil him at the rate of seven minutes and a half to the pound; dish him, and, serving him with no sauce save a tureenful of the water in which he has been boiled, proceed to eat him, with no other condiment than a little salt and the slightest squeeze of a lemon.
