WHITING; NEW ENGLAND HAKE (Merluccius bilinearis). Differs from true hakes (genus Urophycis) Drawing by H. L. Todd
Silver hake are strong swift swimmers, well armed and extremely voracious. Probably a complete diet list would include the young of practically all the Gulf of Maine Fishes. A 23¼ inch silver hake, taken at Orient, N. Y., had 75 herring, 3 inches long, in its stomach. And it is probable that the silver hake that frequent Georges Bank feed chiefly on young haddock. As sweet a fish as one could ask, if eaten fresh or if slack salted overnight and used for breakfast the next morning. Soften so fast they must be frozen quickly.
From Fishes of the Gulf of Maine by Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953. Online courtesy of MBL/WHOI. http://www.gma.org/fogm/Merluccius_bilinearis.htm
Massachusetts landings of silver hake reached a peak in the 1950s with a high of 108 million pounds in 1957. From 2010 to 2016 landings have been in the range of 7 to 9 million pounds. (NOAA)
Good Morning Gloucester 
Great information and spot on research too! Thanks for the wisdom here: Al Bezanson & Kim. I always find this interesting as a young lad curious but know as aging coming full circle each day is a new lesson!! 🙂 Dave
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I was around the waterfront in the 1960s, when, to my recollection, Gloucester was awash in whiting, much of it being packed H&G into one pounders. A low-priced product not consumed much locally. Whiting is most plentiful in the summer, and has a short shelf life, so you noticed it, given the way fish was handled at that time.
Clarence Birdseye, down on the fort, came up with the idea of contact plate freezing, and that innovation helped divert a lot of whiting into food, not fertilizer, which was its fate in earlier years, The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Tech Lab on Emerson Ave. in Gloucester employed some practical food technologists to address quality and marketing issues with whiting. Here’s a brief news release on some of their work.
Click to access 19620622a.pdf
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