Kipper

A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish,[1] that has been split in a butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smouldering wood chips (typically oak).

In the United Kingdom, kippers, along with other preserved smoked or salted fish such as the bloater and buckling, were also once commonly enjoyed as a high tea or supper treat, most popularly with inland and urban working-class populations before World War II.

[4] Another story of the accidental invention of kipper is set in 1843, with John Woodger of Seahouses in Northumberland, when fish for processing was left overnight in a room with a smoking stove.

"[8] Samuel Pepys used it in his diary entry of 28 February 1660: "Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before.

[10] "Cold-smoked" fish that have not been salted for preservation must be cooked before being eaten safely (they can be boiled, fried, grilled, jugged or roasted, for instance).

In general, oily fish are preferred for smoking as the heat is evenly dispersed by the oil, and the flesh resists flaking apart like drier species.

[citation needed] The Manx word for kipper is skeddan jiarg, literally red herring; the Irish term is scadán dearg with the same meaning.

[18] The English (UK) idiom [to be] "stitched (or "done") up like a kipper" is commonly used to describe a situation where a person has (depending on context) been "fitted up" or "framed"; "used", unfairly treated or betrayed; or cheated out of something, with no possibility of correcting the "wrong" done.