Martin Phillips wrote:
> Baby eels are born in the Sargasso sea, unless someone has found a way
> of making daddy and mummy eels do their stuff in a pond. The elver
> fishers are out around here in force at the moment.
>
> In Spanish supermarkets there now seems to be a good trade in mock
> elver, or "gulas" as they are called. Presumably this is a contraction
> of the Spanish word for elver, which currently escapes me but is
> something like anguilla, which is Latin for eel. They're made of the
> same stuff as crab sticks, being basically reprocessed fish finger. They
>
I distinctly remember having a salad in the early 60's in Mexico
with what I was told were baby eels. They were about 3 inches
long, translucent and definitely had eyes. They were delicious
and one of the most memorable dishes I've had.
But now that you mention the Sargasso Sea I you've got me
doubting my memory so I did a Google and found:
> Elvers
>
> “These noodles are delicious,” exclaimed an American tourist
overheard in a tapas restaurant in San Sebastien several years
ago. “So garlicky.” She wasn’t eating noodles, however, she was
eating eels. Baby eels. Elvers. Angulas in Spanish. A delicacy
in and around the Mediterranean and throughout Asia, elvers have
been wriggling onto menus in the United States in the last few
years.
According to Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, commercial
elver fishing in Maine began in the 1970s, died off by the 1980s,
and picked up again during the 1990s. How could anyone mistake
eels for
noodles? Elvers, also called “glass eels,” are thin, transparent
near-invertebrates that swim from the ocean up into freshwater
rivers
where they grow into full-sized eels, according to The Oxford
Companion to
Food. They have a delicate texture and subtle flavor that, when
cooked
with enough garlic and olive oil, make them taste surprisingly
like noodles.
>
So the old brain is still retaining at least some facts correctly.
--
Will Chapman
Save Our Waterways
www.SaveOurWaterways.org.uk
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