The Taste of Britain. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

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СКАЧАТЬ 2-5CM LONG. COLOUR: THE JELLY IS PALE BROWN-GOLD, THE EEL PIECES HAVE LIGHT GREY-BLUE SKIN WITH WHITE FLESH, THE BEST HAVE A FINE PALE BLUE BLOOM ON THE SKIN. FLAVOUR: DELICATE, MILDLY FISHY.

      HISTORY:

      Eel is a fish once favoured by Cockneys. Thames eels are more silver in colour and sweeter of taste than those from the Continent (Simon, 1960). Among many early recipes, eel pies were celebrated—not least at Eel Pie Island, near Richmond-upon-Thames; Shakespeare describes a Cockney making a pie in King Lear, putting eels ‘in the paste alive’. Stews and galantines were also made with plenty of eels.

       ‘The appetite grows with eating.’

      FRANçOIS RABELAIS

      Today eel pie has all but vanished even if the shops seem to keep its name alive, but jellied and stewed eels are still made—sold from street stalls and cooked-food shops in London and seaside towns of Essex and Kent. These are the ‘Eel, Pie and Mash’ shops, which sell steak and kidney pies, mashed potatoes and cooked eels.

      Brian Knights, who has made a study of the eel and its fishery in Britain, observes that eels are now caught in the Thames again. Some of them are used by the jelliers who supply the shops, but imported eels are also employed.

      TECHNIQUE:

      The eels are kept alive in holding tanks then electrically stunned and killed immediately before use. They are chopped into lengths then boiled for 15-20 minutes in salted water. The eels in their cooking liquor are left to go cold in the large white basins from which they are sold.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      SOUTH EAST ENGLAND, LONDON.

      Oyster

      DESCRIPTION:

      ENGLISH NATIVE OYSTERS ARE GRADED ACCORDING TO WEIGHT INTO: EXTRA LARGE (OVER 160G); 1: 120-160G; 2:90-120G;3:70-90G. FORM: THE SHELL IS DENSE AND HARD, RELATIVELY FLAT AND SMOOTH, WITH A STRONG NACRE ON THE INSIDE. COLOUR: THE MEAT IS A RICH CREAM, BISCUIT COLOUR.

      WHITSTABLE OYSTERS ARE SLOW-GROWING WITH HEAVY SHELLS; THEY MAY WEIGH UP TO 240G AND BE UP TO 11CM LONG.

      HISTORY:

      The first people to exploit the native oyster, Ostrea edulis, on a large scale in this part of Britain were the Romans. The shellfish were even exported to Rome itself (Wilson, 1973). In the Middle Ages, the Colchester fishery was granted a charter in 1189.

      There were many other beds of native oysters available to the British, Poole in Dorset and Helford in Cornwall to name but two. Trade between the coasts and consumers inland is documented readily from medieval books of account. But there is little doubt that the most important production was concentrated on the Thames estuary: Colchester on the north side and Whitstable on the south. The ‘Company of Free Fishers and Dredgers’, an association of oyster fishermen from Whitstable, has a history stretching back over 400 years. At their peak, there were more than 800 principals in the fisheries (Neild, 1995). One reason for their pre-eminence was the existence of London on their doorstep, with easy water transport to link them to Billingsgate, the principal point of sale. One has only to read diaries, correspondence and printed accounts to appreciate the scale of the business. Oysters were an important food of the common people in London: the Mayor regulated the price of oysters from at least the fifteenth century, and an early reference to ‘Colchesters’ from 1625 confirms the identity of the town with the product.

      Oysters were apparently unlimited until a moment in the 1860s. The development of beds off the Sussex coast in the English Channel had caused the price to fall through oversupply, but these were soon exhausted, and disease and a sequence of bad weather combined to cause a shortage elsewhere. The oyster ceased to be food of the masses and became a costly delicacy.Problems first encountered by the Victorians were never properly addressed and the native oyster beds have suffered acute decline in the intervening years. Fears of catching typhoid due to unhygienic storage wiped out demand before the First World War; catastrophic seasons, such as the winter of 1962-3 which killed 95 per cent of marketable stocks; disease; and finally price competition from oyster varieties that were more easily farmed, or more cheaply gathered, were the most potent causes.

      Seasalter, the company based in Whitstable which currently does most work on oyster culture in the Thames estuary, has a history which stretches back to the mid-nineteenth century. The fishery of Whitstable did not escape the trials endured by other sites, but recovery has been put in hand. The beds were re-stocked with young natives from other locations, and Pacific oysters were introduced in the 1960s. Both varieties are now farmed at Whitstable. In Colchester, commerce was interrupted by the crises described above, but Colchester Oyster Fishery Ltd was established in 1966 to restore the beds. Stocks were hit badly by the parasite Bonamia in 1982 but are slowly recovering. Whitstable Oysters have been awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI).

      TECHNIQUE:

      Colchester oysters are fattened in the Pyefleet, a creek in the estuary of the River Colne. This is good for the purpose, as it has mildly brackish, nutrient-rich water, containing the phytoplankton on which oysters thrive. The name ‘Pyefleet’ has always been jealously guarded by Colchester Borough Council. The derelict oyster beds at Pyefleet, just south of the town of Colchester, were cleared of accumulated silt in the 1960s, an operation which was followed by natural re-stocking. New storage tanks were built. Water for these is pumped from settlement ponds into a storage pond and filtered into temperature-controlled, oxygenated tanks. The water for holding oysters is circulated through an ultra-violet treatment plant, and the water composition is monitored daily. After purification, the oysters are graded, packed in tubs with seaweed, and distributed.

      In Whitstable, native oysters are gathered by a power dredge towed by a trawler which flicks the oysters into a cage; all oysters sold in England are purified in clean water under ultra-violet light for 2 days; after this they are graded by eye. Some farming of native oysters is also carried out at Whitstable, where Pacifies are farmed in mesh bags on steel tables.

      To be called a Whitstable oyster, the shellfish must come from the coast between Shoeburyness and North Foreland, north Kent.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      COLCHESTER (ESSEX); SOUTH EAST ENGLAND, WHITSTABLE (KENT). ALSO EAST ANGLIA.

      COMPARE WITH:

      Oyster, Scotland (p. 335)

       ‘Oysters are more beautiful than any religion… There’s nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfish-ness of an oyster.’

      SAKI, THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS

      Patum Peperium

      DESCRIPTION:

      ANCHOVY RELISH IN SMALL FLAT ROUND PLASTIC BOXES OF 42.5G OR 70G; LARGER GLASS AND PORCELAIN POTS ARE ALSO USED. COLOUR: PINK-BROWN; THE COLOUR OF SALTED ANCHOVY. FLAVOUR: SALTY, FISHY, STRONG ANCHOVY FLAVOUR.

      HISTORY:

      The СКАЧАТЬ