The term "scrod" for a method of preparing fish, rather than a type or size of fish, is first attested in 1841. It is from the
Anglo-Cornish dialect word
scraw: Fish are scrawed when they are prepared in a particular way before cooking. This scrawing consists in cutting them flatly open and then slightly powdering them with salt and sometimes with pepper. They are then exposed to the sun or air, that as much as possible of the moisture may be dried up. In this state they are roasted over a clear burning coal or wood fire. Thus prepared and smeared over with a little butter they are said to be 'scrawed'. A similar meaning is found in
Scots scrae: "fish dried in the sun without being salted", attested in 1806. This corresponds to its earliest documented meaning in American English: "a young or small cod fish, split and salted for cooking". Another theory derives it from the Dutch
schrood, from
Middle Dutch schrode 'a piece cut off', that is, cut up for drying or cooking. There is a rare variant
escrod.
Folklore The term has been credited to the
Parker House Hotel in
Boston. The term has attracted a number of jocular false etymologies. One treats it as short for the "
Sacred Cod" carving that hangs in the Boston State House." Various
acronyms have been suggested, though acronyms were hardly ever used in the past: "seaman’s catch received on deck," supposedly any whitefish of the day; for "small cod remaining on dock"; "select catch retrieved on [the] day." Scrod was apparently often used to mean simply fresh fish of the day, since menus were made up before the day's catch was brought in. ==Cuisine==