Dried fish terminology
This page captures notes on different terms and definitions used for "dried fish". Some of this information may be split off into a glossary. Emphasis added throughout.
DFM definition of "dried fish"
The Dried Fish Matters project has been using "dried fish" as a catchall term, using non-industrial preservation.
A large share of global fisheries catches, particularly those landed in the global South, are preserved using simple techniques including sun-drying, salting, fermentation, and smoking. We use “dried fish” as a catchall term for this category of foods, broadly defined as any aquatic animal product that has undergone processing that enables it to be stored as food at room temperature for extended periods of time without specialized industrial packaging.
Prior to the introduction of ice making technologies and cold chains, dried fish would have been the main form in which fisheries catches were traded and consumed, and the global historical record is replete with evidence of widespread dried fish production, storage, trade, and consumption, going back millennia. But dried fish is not a residual category. It remains a core component of diets and cuisines across much of the world, and in some locations – including much of Africa – is the main form in which fish is sold and eaten.
Drying results in dehydration, weight reduction and concentration of nutrients. The ease with which dried fish can be stored and transported means that it reaches hinterland areas where fresh fish and other nutritious foods are not readily available, and permits the smoothing out of consumption throughout the year even in areas where fish are not abundant during some seasons. These qualities of dried fish, along with their ready divisibility into small portions, intense flavor, and prices per unit of nutrient that are often low compared to fresh fish, make them widely and readily available and accessible, and of disproportionately great importance to the nutrition of the most vulnerable.
Salted fish in China
The IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans (2012) uses the term "salted fish" for Chinese dry-salted, pickled, and brined fish.[1]
Briefly, salted fish are prepared by salting, brining, dry-salting, pickle curing, or a combination of these treatments. In brining, fish are placed in a solution of crude salt in water until the fish tissue has absorbed the required amount of salt. For dry-salting, fish are mixed with dry salt and the resultant brine (from dissolution of the salt in the water present in the fish) is allowed to drain away. When pickling or pickle curing the fish is mixed with salt and stored under the brine (pickle) formed when the salt dissolves in the water extracted from the fish. In southern China, fish are generally not gutted before salting, and only when bigger fish such as red snapper are salted are the guts drawn out through the throat, without making an incision in the belly of the fish. Salting is done with crude salt in wooden vats. After a few days, the fish are immersed in brine and weights (often large stones placed on top of grass mats) are placed on the surface to prevent the fish from floating, for one to five days. After this the fish are dried under the sun for one to seven days, depending on the size of the fish and the weather. Salted fish prepared in this way are called ‘tough’ or ‘hard meat’ salted fish. Sometimes, fish is allowed to soften by decomposition before salting, to produce ‘soft meat’ salted fish (Poirier et al., 1989; Yu et al., 1989a).
Cured fish
Jarvis uses "cured fish" to include all non-industrial preservation methods.
Fish curing comprises all methods of preservation except refrigeration and canning. It includes (1) the drying, smoking, salting and pickling of fish, (2) various combinations of these methods, and (3) miscellaneous methods such as the use of vinegar and fermentation processes of ripening.[2]
