Paying rent in Eels

[The Judge]

No hovercraft operating along the Test just yet, and no Hungarian connections, either, but eels are another matter Eels

 

[Pyan]

No hovercraft operating along the Test just yet...

Try the other side of the city, Judge, on the River Itchen - Griffon Hovercraft

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That’ll be some English, Teresa, in fact very few.

The only time I’ve eaten eel was in fish soup in Japan - I say ‘eaten’ it was by accident and I certainly didn’t swallow it. Not pleasant.

Clearly I read too much P. G. Wodehouse.

 

[Pyan]

I've had jellied eels in a pub in East London. They had a chap who came round every evening, with a basket of different seafoods - mussels, whelks, cockles, prawns, etc, and jellied eels. Tasted OK, but every bit had a central bone in it, which had to be removed to the polystyrene container as discreetly as possible.

Tesco sells them, except not at the moment...Counter Cooked Jellied Eels

 

[Ursa major]

Try the other side of the city, Judge, on the River Itchen - Griffon Hovercraft

View attachment 71762

I didn't realise that the service was still running using hovercraft.

 

[Pyan]

They don't - that's where the factory is, just above the Itchen Bridge. As far as I know, though, the Portsmouth-Ryde hovercraft ferry uses Griffon machines.
Most of the output these days goes to various militaries.

 

[Ursa major]

I meant any hovercraft service to the Isle of Wight. (I looked up Griffon Hovercraft on Wikipedia and, Covid permitting, two of its hovercraft are still in service on Hovertravel's Southsea-Ryde route.)


As an aside, one of my great uncles was a captain on the (non-hovercraft-based) Isle of White Ferry, presumably (I don't know for a fact) based at Southsea, but I do know that he took the Gosport Ferry to get to work. (I met him just the once... in the 1990s, when he himself was in his nineties.)

 

[Dave]

I lived in Tooting in 1985 when I was a student (disappointingly I never saw Wolfie Smith there). There was a Jellied Eel and Pie shop on the High Street that had a queue about 1/4 mile long every Friday evening. I always fancied trying them, but I never did. I was even told back then that they tasted of nothing but seawater and looked like snot. I could never understand why the shop was so popular.

Incidentally, last night I spent an Evening with Eels on Zoom presented by the Institute of Fisheries Management with talks from Environment Agency guys. That was where I got that Domesday Book Rents link from. The talks were recorded so somewhere they can still be watched, if anyone is interested in the history of eels and current work on their conservation.

 

[Montero]

There is also of course Diet of Worms - Wikipedia
(which Terry Pratchett used for his reference to the Diet of Bugs)

 

[Dave]

The talks were recorded so somewhere they can still be watched...

You can view the recording here

The passcode is Vs%u=BM6

There were two lectures/talks. Both were about 1 hour long.

I know eating eels sounds funny to some people, but good sources of protein for the poor were hard to come by. Unless poached, meat would be rarely eaten. Fish like Smelt, Eels, and shellfish like Oysters were food for the poor. It is only as Smelt and Oysters numbers declined and their prices rose, that they became a food exclusively for the rich.

And also what TJ said is important too:

I suspect it would also be more amenable to drying than other freshwater fish, just as you get dried cod, so it would be invaluable in months when other food wasn't easily available, and, of course, fish was eaten a great deal more in the middle ages, not least thanks to religious dictates.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Eels, huh? Well...

Seems a more viable form of currency than BitCoin, so, why not?

 

[Danny McG]

Me and my mates spent many an hour during school holidays in the 1960's constructing eel traps in the woods beside a local pond.

We had a small fire blazing away on the pond edge, the eels were lifted out, beheaded, sliced up while still wiggling and the meat skewered and spit roast over the fire, yummy.

One thing I recall vividly was we all had large sheath knives hanging on our belts, used to slice and then skin the eels.
This in no way encouraged knife crime, we were boys who used the knives as intended - tools.

 

[Alex The G and T]

And... country living makes it advisable to always carry a pocket knife. A commonly useful convenience around the homestead.

I almost always remember to take it out of my pocket when I need to go through a security gate.

Rent-a-cops fail to recognize that a silly little 3 inch pocket knife is a tool, not a weapon.

 

[Dave]

I feel we are moving off topic somewhat, but even more fascinating than the carrying of a knife (any fisherman needs a knife) are that your mother let you stay out all day, without any idea where you were, or when you would be back, without anyway to contact you, playing near to watercourses, and making fires! You also probably also walked miles way from home, while today kids rarely go, unsupervised, further than their own streets.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Yeah, My rural, parental homestead was on the edge of a huge tract of wilderness. I remember being age 4 or 5, wandering off into the forest wondering where this old logging road goes. All alone for hours. Fortunately, I always, apparently, had a good sense of direction. Never got lost.

Or Getting on my bicycle and disappearing for hours, all over the mountain. My parents could bet I'd be back for supper. No fast-foods, corner markets or soda shops within 12 miles of that mountain.

 

[sknox]

Heck, I lived in cities and ran loose like that. Different times.

 

[CTRandall]

I regularly ate eel until I went veggie. Sushi, yum! Freshwater eel was my favourite!