The South Bristol Historical Society and a handful of residents carried on a local tradition last weekend, smoking herring in the organization’s historic smokehouse.
For many years, the smokehouse sat on state property adjacent to the swing bridge crossing The Gut. The Dept. of Transportation eventually forced its removal, and late bridgetender Craig Plummer brought it home.
Following Plummer’s 2010 death, his son, Brandon Plummer, donated the smokehouse to the South Bristol Historical Society.
Local builder Ken Lincoln made a stone and lumber foundation for the tiny building on a parcel shared with another historic structure, the S Road School.
Dennis Farrin, the oldest of the five residents preparing for the smoke Oct. 21, estimates the age of the smokehouse at 75 years. It’s more exact than a stab at his own birthdate, which he pegs as “in the 1930s.”
During his youth, Farrin smoked fish in the smokehouse with one of its previous owners, Irving Clifford.
“The trick is in the brining,” Farrin said. Ken and Todd Lincoln did this task, layering herring and salt in large trays.
Next, the crew strings the herring on long sticks. Farrin recommends apple or wild cherry wood.
Finally, they hang the sticks on the smokehouse rafters and start a fire in the wood stove.
The process, including early morning and late night visits to the smokehouse, at the intersection of Rt. 129 and S Road, to tend the fire, lasts 3-5 days.
The smoked herring, stored in a cool place, will last months with no refrigeration necessary.
To eat a smoked herring, one simply cuts off the head and tail, peels the skin and “the little filet comes right off the bone,” Ken Lincoln said.
The snacks reportedly pair well with cold beer and hunting.
Farrin waxed nostalgic about the old days, when one might head out on a hunting excursion, “sit town beside the stream, have a herring and drink out of the stream.”
The fish have young fans, too. “They smell bad but they taste good,” 5-year-old Lincoln Ball said.
