The short answer to why we serve fish with lemon is the same reason we eat fries with ketchup, hot dogs with mustard, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream: It just tastes good. Deep in the mists of time, somebody tried it, liked it, all their friends and family followed suit, and it went the pre-social media version of viral. If we want to do a deeper dive into exactly what makes lemon a perfect piscine pairing — and clearly we do, otherwise this would be a pretty short piece — there are numerous other reasons.
Some of them are fairly obvious: Certain types of fish are quite bland and lemon provides some much-needed zinginess. Conversely, some other fish can taste a bit too fishy, and adding an acidic element helps balance out the brine. The scientific reason for this is that fish contains an alkaline compound called trimethylamine that's neutralized by citric acid.
Abandoning science for speculation, we could also draw a line between the fact that in earlier centuries, those in maritime occupations including fishing were frequently plagued by scurvy. In 1753, however, a Scottish surgeon named James Lind discovered that lemon juice was an effective preventative. We now know that vitamin C deficiency causes While there doesn't seem to be direct evidence that people started adding lemon to fish for scurvy prevention, there could be a connection.
One apocryphal story credits lemon as a lifesaver If you're a fan of "wacky facts," you may have come across an assertion that peopl.
