Posted by Jonathan Labaree on April 28, 2003 at 15:05:23 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: Chronology of PM-Crewe posted by John Nichols on April 28, 2003 at 13:32:32:
John,
You are likely to get a number of opinions about the taste of eel - it is something of an acquired taste. I rather like it, but it is oily. I haven't caught them in quite a while, but as a lad, we had eel traps in the river. We would skin them (vice-grip pliers are handy), chop them into one-inch sections and sauté them in butter, sometimes coating them in flour. All very basic, round-the-campfire sort of stuff and excellent to my way of thinking.
The Japanese love eel of various sorts – especially they young “glass eel”. Local fisherman came very near decimating the population of American eel in the rivers here in Maine when the Japanese where paying $400 per pound for the juveniles called elvers. A drop in the market price and state regulations have drastically reduced the catch, but for a few years, every little stream had nets hanging near the mouth and guys out there at night with dip nets. American eel are catadromous (the opposite of anadramous), meaning they spawn in salt water and live in fresh or brackish water.
Eels are fascinating. All American and European eels originate from the Sargasso Sea (that’s a LONG way from Secret Water). They go their separate ways soon after they are born. How they tell each other apart, or know which way to go, is still a mystery.
- Jonathan