Dried and cured fish
Fish preserved by drying, salting, smoking or fermenting, from Bengali shutki and dried bombil to Norway's stockfish.
Also: stockfish, shutki, bombil, salt fish
Before refrigeration, drying, salting, smoking and fermenting were the only ways to keep fish. They remain important. Along India's coasts, Bombay duck is hung on bamboo frames to dry as bombil, and in Bangladesh and Bengal dried fish is called shutki. In Lofoten in Norway, cod are dried on wooden racks in the open air to make stockfish, traded since the Viking age. Salt cod, bacalhau, is central to Portuguese cooking. Fermented fish pastes and sauces are basic seasonings across South-East Asia and North-East India.