Food Alphabet
Astrakhan (Caspian) herring (puzanok, chernospinka (zal, beshenka, Kessler herring), Volga herring)
Astrakhan herring is a common name for several types of herring caught in the Volga River. These species include: black-backed herring (Kessler's herring, zal), Volga herring (more often considered as a subspecies of black-backed herring; listed in the Red Book of Russia), puzanok.
In the puzanka, the body is strongly compressed from the sides, wide; the belly is large, arched; the skin is thin, olive-colored; the meat is tender, rather fat. In cooking, puzanka is most often salted or marinated.
The blackback is distinguished by the thickness of the body and an elongated, bent down tail. This herring is larger than the puzanka (the first reaches a length of 50 cm with a weight of 400 g, and the second 60 with a weight of 2 kg) and makes up the bulk of the selected herring, known under the trade and culinary name "zal".
The hall is famous for its excellent taste. This is a large Caspian herring, which is most often smoked cold or salted. There are several versions of the origin of the word "hall". The consonant of the first of them," crease " herring was called because of its large size, it had to be bent, that is, wrung, and only then placed in a barrel for salting. On the other hand, " zal "was formed from the adjective "zalomny", which means "rich, monetary, expensive", and, as you know, fat herring is really very highly valued!
Since during the spawning period the fish splashes strongly, circles on the surface of the water surface and even sometimes is thrown ashore (which, of course, leads to its death), this fish is also called "rabid"by the people.
Until the 1860s, rabies was almost never eaten, as it was considered an"unclean" fish. They just melted the fat out of it. And only since the end of the 1860s, it began to be salted, and quite differently than foreigners salted sea herring.
Unfortunately, already in the first half of the 20th century, the population of rabies declined sharply. The reason for this was, on the one hand, the pollution of the Volga with oil and the construction of hydroelectric power plants,and on the other – excessive fishing.
To date, real rabies is very rare, but many people still call a large fat herring a crease!
