Codfish mellowed by the process of “dunning.” See particularly 1792.

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1762.  “Choice Dumb Fish and Connecticut Pork” advertised in the Boston Evening Post, Jan. 11.

2

1762.  Choice Providence Stone Lime, and the best Dumb Fish.Id., Oct. 4.

3

1767.  “Dumb Fish” advertised by Samuel Allyne Otis.—Boston-Gazette, Sept. 21.

4

1769.  “Dumb Fish” for sale at Auction.—Mass. Gazette, Nov. 23.

5

1770.  Joseph Barrell, at Store No. 3, South Side, Town Dock, advertises Dumb Fish.Boston Evening Post, May 21.

6

1772.  A few Quintals best Dumb’d Fish for sale.—Mass. Gazette, Oct. 29.

7

1774.  Henry Lloyd offers for sale “a few Quintals of choice Dum Fish.”Boston Evening Post, June 27.

8

1786.  Dumb Fish, &c., advertised in Maryland Journal, June 9.

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1792.  [The cod] after being properly salted and dried, is kept alternately above and under ground, till it becomes so mellow as to be denominated dumb fish. This fish, when boiled, is red, and is eaten generally on Saturdays, at the best tables in New-England.—Jeremy Belknap, ‘New Hampshire,’ iii. 213–4. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)

10

1809.  I must thank you for the dumb-fish which you have been so kind as to have forwarded.—Thomas Jefferson to Gen. Dearborne, June 14: from Monticello.

11

1812.  One hundred and fifty quintals Dumb Fish for sale.—Advt., Boston-Gazette, July 2.

12

1818.  “Dun-fish. When cod-fish is dunned, it ought not to be boiled at all. It is a little surprising that many a good housewife is not apprised that the dun or dried cod-fish ought not to be boiled.—Mass. Spy, Dec. 23.

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1873.  The process of dunning, which made the Shoals fish so famous a century ago, is almost a lost art, though the chief fisherman at Star still “duns” a few yearly.—Celia Thaxter, ‘Among the Isles of Shoals,’ p. 83.

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