BEFORE WE HAD refrigerators and food preservatives, we dried food—fish, especially. This tradition still endures. After fishermen pull up their trawling nets and haul away the best of the catch, the day’s rejects languish in murky pools of fish guts and seawater. Here, any fish too small, damaged or unappetising to sell—anchovies, usually—remains. Waste not, want not, reasoned the fishermen. This mix of fishes—which would include excess catch during bountiful days—would be heavily salted to draw out all moisture, then sun-dried for weeks till dehydrated and crisp. They might then be fed to livestock, crushed and used as bait, eaten as a snack or incorporated into cooking. Either way, they would not go to waste.
Ikan bulu ayam, gelama tengkerong and ikan gelama tiga gigi are fish species usually dried because they are too bony to be worth cooking. Salt, which gives dried fish its distinctive flavour, is used in abundance for its antibacterial properties. For the sake of variety, these fish are also powdered, made into fish paste, stock or keropok (crackers).
