Kipper

A kipper is a whole herring (a small, oily fish) 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, Ireland and some regions of North America, kippers are most commonly eaten for breakfast. In the United Kingdom, kippers, along with other preserved smoked or salted fish such as the bloater and buckling, were also once commonly consumed as a high tea or supper treat, most popularly with inland and urban working-class populations before World War II.

Terminology

The word is thought to derive from the Old English cypera, or copper, based on the colour of the fish. The word has various possible parallels, such as Icelandic kippa which means "to pull, snatch" and the Germanic word kippen which means "to tilt, to incline". Similarly, the Middle English kipe denotes a basket used to catch fish. Another theory traces the word kipper to the kip, or small beak, that male salmon develop during the breeding season.

As a verb, kippering ("to kipper") means to preserve by rubbing with salt or other spices before drying in the open air or in smoke.

Originally applied to the preservation of surplus fish (particularly those known as "kips," harvested during spawning runs), kippering has come to mean the preservation of any fish, poultry, beef or other meat in like manner. The process is usually enhanced by cleaning, filleting, butterflying or slicing the food to expose maximum surface area to the drying and preservative agents.

Kippers, bloaters, and bucklings

All three are types of smoked herring.