Unit 7 salting

1. Read and translate the words having the same root in the English and Russian languages:

Operation, marinading. Aroma, combination, contact, crystal, form, organic, arrest, block, action, bacteria, concentration, protector, autolysis, basis, group, reservoir.

2. Remember the meaning of the following words and word-combinations:

salting – засолка, соленье

preliminary –предварительный

snack – закуска

sprats – шпрот, килька

to marinade – мариновать

items – продукты

to permeate – проникать

restacking – укладка слоями

to force out – вытеснять

to coagulate – свертываться

efficacy – сила

barrel – бочонок

to intersperse – посыпать, пересыпать (солью)

rake – гребок

3. State what part of speech the following words are referred to and translate them into Russian:

Reserving, smoking, drying, processing, fishing; combination, operation, concentration, formation, regulation; salted, varied, marinated, extracted, extended, improved, delayed; pleasant, artificial, bacterial, preservative, lower, drier, climatic, harmful, waterless.

4.Read and translate the following text:

Salting

Salting is both a method of preserving fish and a preliminary operation to smoking, drying, and marinading.

Many types of salted fish in which a pleasant flavour and aroma are produced by salting, make tasty snacks and appetizers – herrings, sprats, anchovies, salmon, whitefish, etc. The products made from them are varied – from salted fish proper to the daintiest spiced delicatessen and marinaded items – and the range and quality are being constantly extended and improved. In a narrow sense, salting is a combination of operations by which fish is placed in contact with salt (whether as crystals or in solution) and allowed to become permeated by it. These operations include mixing the fish with salt, laying and keeping the fish in the container in which it is salted, restacking, etc.

Salting may also be taken to mean the combination of physico-chemical processes by which salt penetrates the fish, and moisture is forced out of the tissues, producing a change in weight. When this is implied, it is better to say that the salt has “struck”.

Salt solutions are known as brine. Brine that has formed as a result of salt reacting on the fish (i.e. the aqueous salt solution released by the fish) is called natural brine, and brine prepared by dissolving salt in water – artificial. The feature of the natural brine is that it contains certain proportion of dissolved or suspended organic matter. The amount of salt used is sometimes more than cam be dissolved in the water contained in the fish. Some undissolved salt (known as excess salt) then remains in the vat after the fish are removed, and there is also a sediment of skin, coagulated proteins, fragments of fins, etc.

Preservative action of salt. When common salt is introduced into fish in sufficient quantity it arrests autolysis and spoilage. The common salt not only causes plasmolysis in the bacterial cell but also blocks the protein nuclei which are effected by enzymes. Its preservative action manifests itself by altering the state of the proteins and enzymes in such a way that proteins become impervious to the action of enzymes, and the letter lose their efficacy.

Common salt has a bacteriostatic and bactericidal action, that is, it both delays the growth of bacteria and kills them. The growth of many putrefactive rod bacteria in artificial media is arrested by a 10 per cent salt concentration that of putrefactive cocci by a 15 per cent concentration. But a higher concentration than this is required if fish is to be protected from spoilage.

Salted fish with a concentration not exceeding 15 per cent can be kept in the cold room at a temperature of 0°C or lower. Only heavily salted fish with a concentration close to a saturation will tolerate prolonged storage at a temperature of 10°C.

The salting process. Successful preservation depends a great deal on the time taken for the salt concentration inside the fish to reach the minimum level to arrest autolysis and the growth of microflora. This time is conditioned by two factors: a) the rate at which salt is dissolved, forming brine, and b) the rate at which it penetrates the fish; and water is extracted. Provided that the fish and salt are thoroughly mixed, and the salt is of the right quality, the latter dissolves more quickly than the fish become salted. Salting is therefore delayed if the salt dissolves too slowly through being very coarse. Successive salting consequently depends basically on the speed of penetration of the salt, i.e. on the time taken for its concentration to increase in the fish fluid. With equal permeability of tissues the amount of salt penetrating fish in unit time will depend on the surface area of the fish and on the area to thickness ratio, that is on the specific area of the fish. Brining may be carried out in several ways which fall basically in two groups: a) in which the fish are salted in the same brine from start to finish, and b) in which the brine is replaced by a fresh, stronger solution after it has weakened.

There is also a method of mixed salting which is carried out as follows: a small amount of strong brine is poured into the bottom of the tank (barrel or vat) and fish put into it until a fairly thick mixture forms, and the fish are entirely covered by brine. They are then spread with salt, and more fish are fed in the shallow layers interspersed with layers of salt which are leveled out with a rake. If herring are salted in barrels , they are first mixed with salt.

Larger fish are placed in raws dry, and brine is admitted to the tank from a reservoir placed in one corner. With split fish the gills and belly cavity of each fish are stuffed with salt.