scrod

[prettygoodword]

scrod (SKROD) - n., a young cod, haddock, or other whitefish.


Especially when split and boned for cooking, or sometimes now filleted. In commercial fishing, it's a classification for sales purposes, the smallest size. The origin is unknown, with many theories tossed about, the most common and staid being the past participle of Cornwall dialect scraw/scrawl/scroal, to split, salt, and dry (a young fish), itself of unknown origin, but alternatives being Dutch schrood, slice (referring to the splitting), Dutch schrot, a cull/inferior product, and an Americanism from Boston as a restaurant's made-up term for the fish of the day.

---L.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

"Where do yo go to get scrod in Boston?"

"I dunno, the Combat Zone?"

[prettygoodword]

Heh.

[full_metal_ox]

English major cabbie: “A lot of folks ask me that, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive.”

See also: "If you paid more than (reasonable market price) per pound for scrod, you got scrod."

And, from Time magazine, 5 October 1962:

Here’s to old Boston,
Home of the bean and the cod.
Where the Kennedys always get caviar
And the McCormacks only get scrod.

Which very probably parodies:

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots
And the Cabots talk only to God.

—Attributed to ophthalmologist John Collins Bossidy (1860-1928), speaking at a Holy Cross Alumni Dinner (and in turn parodying an extant toast to inject the Irish-American Bossidy’s snipe at the WASP Boston Brahmins; long story: https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/historical-and-hysterical-winterspring-2015/)

[minoanmiss]

snork

[med_cat]

Ah, hee, so that's what it means... ;)

"...but we'll fly to New England, and I'll get you scrod!"

(you probably know the song)

[prettygoodword]

I didn't, actually, until after I posted this. I plead being on the wrong side of the country.

[med_cat]

Hehe, I hadn't heard it myself, until a few years ago! ;))