I was recently asked to explain how, since kippers were only invented in the middle of the Nineteenth century, Langland's Map of Kintyre, made in 1793, identifies several red herring houses.
Red Herring, particularly associated with East Anglia, have been known for centuries, and as early as 1357 an Act of the English Parliament provided that, red herring made from fresh fish costing 40 shillings per last, could be sold within forty days for half a mark of gain only, or one mark, ( 13s 4d ), if transported to London.
Writing about 1585, Montgomerie of Hesilheid, a member of a family that provided one of Kintyre's "Lowland Lairds", complained in a poem, "This is no life I lead upon a land with raw red herring reisted in a reek."
In earlier times, herring were prepared for redding by being salted whole in the fish houses in heaps about two feet deep. This lasted about two days when they were washed and hung up in the smoke house on wooden rods pushed through the gills and mouths. After seven days of smoking, the oil was allowed to drip from the fish for two days, when the fire was relit. The whole process was twice repeated, and then the smoking was continued until the herring were sufficiently cured for the particular market to which they were to be sent.
In the modern process, the ungutted fish are "roused", i.e. salted in vats for one or two weeks, washed and smoked for about a week, the smoking being interrupted as before to allow the oil to drip away. Red herrings were variously known as bacon herring, militiamen, and Glasgow magistrates. "Reds" were traditionally supplied to the Levant.
Kippers, of course, are split and gutted before being smoked. They are washed in brine for about half an hour, and then hung up to smoke, preferably above a fire of oak chips, for periods varying from six to eighteen hours.
With the scarcity and high price of herring, the trade in "Reds" has died away. In 1976, only 1,878 Tonnes were redded, as against some 16,251 tons in 1938.
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