[Sca-cooks] Tench

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Friday, June 27, 2003, at 05:56  PM, Patrick Levesque wrote:

> As I'm not much of a fisherman, and an infrequent eater of fish...
>
> ...Where is tench generally found, and, in terms of taste, what fish 
> does
> it more closely ressemble?

The Larousse Gastronomique says it's a small freshwater fish with small 
scales and whiskers or barbels on either side of its mouth. It 
apparently has a firm, sweet, white meat, so it is probably comparable 
to something like perch, but with a gelatinous quality similar to the 
texture of cod-- if that helps.

In medieval English recipes it seems frequently to be partnered with 
pike, as in, "take luces and tenches", which supports the idea of a 
firm, sweet, white meat, as does its frequent presence in aigredouce 
recipes.

You might look at:

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/pc/walton/angler/chapter11.html

which quotes Izaak Walton's chapter on the tench.

Adamantius