Ah…. Kippers.

           Rowena took up boxing, but
        Her fists were more like flippers.
        She met a man from Billingsgate,
           So now she’s boxing kippers.

Ah…. Kippers. I like mine in a sandwich, dry bread and spread with Tartare sauce.

It is claimed that the first kippers were prepared in Northumberland early in the 19th century. The story goes that John Woodger, a fish curer from that area, began to experiment in 1843 with a new way of smoking herrings. He knew that salmon had been ’kippered’ as long ago as the 14th century, and he wanted to try the same method with herrings. So he split the fish down the backbone, gutted them and soaked them in brine.
Then he hung them up over oak fires to smoke for about 12 hours.
He had invented kippers, and they quickly replaced the much more salty and dry red herring that had been the staple diet for hundreds of years.