Pie and Mash on-line

[saucisson]

I quite agree with you. Last time we were on holiday in Dorset my nephew (who was with us) went on a fishing trip and came back with a six foot conger eel because the person who caught it didn't think it was edible. We ate a lot of conger that week, done to my mother-in-laws old family recipe.

I believe it is relatively easy to get a licence to catch the american crayfish if your local river is officially infested, but you aren't allowed to put any back, so must eat them or destroy them.

Dave

[Wohoki]

My local river is the Test: �200 a day and a two fish bag. Anyone else is shot at, and I know the river-keeper, but he isn't interested in eel pie.

[pokerpete]

I quite agree with you. Last time we were on holiday in Dorset my nephew (who was with us) went on a fishing trip and came back with a six foot conger eel because the person who caught it didn't think it was edible. We ate a lot of conger that week, done to my mother-in-laws old family recipe.

I believe it is relatively easy to get a licence to catch the american crayfish if your local river is officially infested, but you aren't allowed to put any back, so must eat them or destroy them.

Dave

The American crayfish are a pest and are rapidly replacing our indigenous species, very much like the grey squirrel (tree rat) has decimated our own red squirrel.

[Wohoki]

& equally as tasty. Eat either at any opportunity.

[roseway]

very much like the grey squirrel (tree rat) has decimated our own red squirrel.

Now now! The grey squirrel isn't a rat. It's a member of the rodent family, but so is the red squirrel. It's just a wild animal trying the only way it knows to make a living. It's not the grey squirrel's fault that humans brought it to this country.

Eric

[Wohoki]

But it is tasty, unlike rat.

[royt]

Back in the sixties we used to put congers into the old man's runner bean trench because it produce a very flavoursome bean.

[saucisson]

My local river is the Test: �200 a day and a two fish bag. Anyone else is shot at, and I know the river-keeper, but he isn't interested in eel pie.

Would he let you trap crayfish that are eating all his fish stocks?

The Test and the Itchen, surely a joke in the making ( I lived in Southampton for 10 years)

[Rik vonTrense]

Jen is dead right about the fenland eels.....although I have never done it I understand you can just go around and pick them up as they are scooting across country.....mind you they do move.

There is a chap up there that catches them and freezes them but charges a fortune to send them off to you...maybe Jen will get her running shoes on or have an eel catching BBQ....great fun when you have had a few beers and sausages of course. They keep okay Frozen and packed into one of those polestyrene boxes of which I have several.

A friend of one of my sons used to fish for eels up at a cooling tower water and they were massive eels. I think they liked the warm water but sadly his parents divorced and he went with his mother up North now I don't get any eels to make my jellied eels with.

They are good for a diet as I used to have a bowl per day as my main meal and they satisfied me with a small snack for supper.... and toast for brekkie.

[akesingland]

Hi All

As a point of order, why does the rat counjour (sorry spelling) up all things bad? Chinese horoscope, what is the first animal on the list? The rat, it crossed the river first (I believe he was smart enough to cadge a lift). It's just us westerners that don't like the fella. Me, the rat is a wonderful piece of mother natures enginering. Don't blame the animal, blame the idiot that let them in in the first place.

Cheers (Rat Fans!!!)
Adam

[Wohoki]

I don't dislike rats per se, but they don't make for good eating: the meat is tough and greasy, with a persistant aftertaste.

[akesingland]

Hi Wohoki

Guess you have eaten rat then? I have not, I guess it must be the thigh?

Cheers
Adam

[Wohoki]

I have, but I would (probably) not do so again. It wasn't good.


I always feel that it is wrong to turn down an experience, no matter one's misgivings beforehand.

(It was a whole rat, stuffed with dried fish and shaved coconut, wrapped in a banana leaf, BBQ'ed, in the north of Laos. I'm not going to say not to try it, but once is enough.)

[akesingland]

Cool

Was it a wild rat or a lab one?

Cheers
Adam

[Wohoki]

It was a rat. I was in the jungle. It was that or nothing (as is the case in a lot of places).