[Sca-cooks] lampreys

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Stefan li Rous wrote:


 > Okay, so Stefan is gullible.


Ummm, that's not exactly what I had in mind. More like, someone will
write something, and you know it made absolutely perfect sense if even
Stefan understands it. Which isn't a matter of gullibility, it's more
like getting past a spell-checker or something. If it gets past every
conceivable venue for distortion or misunderstanding, and Stefan can't
find anything wrong with it, then it was a logical statement. I would
consider this more a sign of high intelligence than of guillibility. On
the other hand, the daring can use this to advantage at times ;-).


 > I still would like to hear any information about lampreys being eaten
 >  in period or their capture/raising. And I'm still wondering if
 > anyone has served them at an SCA feast.


Oh, as Brighid mentioned, there are quite a few recipes calling for
lampreys. I would estimate about a quarter of the 14th-15th century
English fish dishes  at least mention them as a possible ingredient.
Generally they are bled, scalded, and skinned before being cut into
steaks, pretty much like eels. They can then be fried, cooked in a civey
with onions, baked in pies, etc., again, pretty much like eels. I assume
they appear so commonly in English medieval cuisine because the fish
dishes reflect a somewhat more river-based fishery structure than an
ocean-based one.


As for their use at SCA events, I believe you can buy lampreys frozen,
from Canada, just as you can eels, but in the USA, at least, the places
  where lampreys are prevalent seem to view them as a slightly dangerous
(to other life forms) nuisance/pest. Consequently, their use as a food
source would be viewed with scorn comparable to my discovering a
restaurant in New York that sells, say, rats with cockroach sauce,
pigeons in their own guano, that sort of thing.

No, Stefan, as far as I know you _can't_ buy the above dishes in New
York restaurants. Which local industry, by the way, has recently been
graded as hygienically superior to that of most comparable metropolitan
areas : ).

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98