Fish Face

I have some personal experience of eels, the long, smooth snake like fish.

This is from a bit of angling in freshwater rivers back in my teenage years. I can still, some 40 years later, recall the dramatic transition in emotions that surprisingly goes with the sedate river bank pastime. The sight of the float twitching before plummeting into the murky, weedy depths immediately evokes the prospect of a prolonged battle of wits against a powerful fish and the possibility of a cheesy portrait photo on the front page of the weekly Angling Times together with the champion catch.

This is soon blown out of the water as the surface breaks with the unmistakable silvery writhings of an eel.

There follows a tangle of nylon line encased in a dripping slime excreted from the almost mythical creature. There is no chance, even with the best intentions, to ever extract the barbed hook from the sharp teethed and leathery mouth and so reluctantly and with mixed feelings the line is cut.

Many experiences of this type gave me a feeling of loathing towards the eel although secretly I admired and respected the species for their sheer survival against a diminishing habitat and modern pollution.

There is an even more legendary back story with the common European eel only spawning out in the doldrums of the Sargasso sea, mid Atlantic before undertaking its epic journey to the rivers and back waters for the sole purpose, apparently, of making enemies amongst anglers.

It was because they were plentiful in the early 18th century in the main watercourses of Northern Europe that the eel became a staple food of the poor, mainly city dwellers. Not only cheap but also nutritious and very versatile being capable of boiling, frying, stewing, smoking and combining with other basic foodstuffs to supplement an otherwise meagre urban diet.

In the East End of London there was a proliferation of eel, pie and mash shops well into the 2oth century before falling out of favour amongst the wider population.

On a brief visit to the London Borough of Hackney over the last weekend I came across, behind the stalls of trendy foods of the Broadway Market , one of the few still operating eel sellers, one Fred Cooke whose family had been trading since 1900. The business had initially thrived serving shepherds driving their flocks to the City of London some 2 miles away.

The shop is a throw-back to the streetscapes of my youth, an ornate facade of plate glass windows with calligraphic etchings about fare and origin and in a dramatic green and gold livery. It stands now in a long terraced row of non-descript shop units mainly estate agents, Londis branded mini-markets, very spartan galleries and a few expensive boutiques or niche craft outlets.

The appearance was so alien in that gentrified landscape that I hesitated to go in even though the window mounted card advertising Jellied Eels at £3.50 a serving had caught my interest.

I could see a long metal serving counter to one side and an array of old marble topped tables and refectory benches down the other. The walls had faded family group photographs from the 1970's, a framed newspaper print of Lady Diana and East End memorabilia. Those sat inside as customers had a close resemblance in character to the photographs which made me think that they might  all be related in some way.

Such is the authenticity of the shop, externally and internally that it is regularly used for period drama TV, worryingly most recently in the infamous Whitechapel Murders.

I summoned up enough northern bravado (although born in Aylesbury) to enter and order in as neutral an accent as possible, a serving of Jellied Eels.

Business must have been brisk during the day as the young girl behind the counter had to check the large stainless steel vat before saying that she just had enough left to fill a single polystyrene cup.

She explained the process behind the dish.

The eels are no longer locally sourced from the Thames but arrive at Billingsgate Fish Market from commercial farms in Holland. I think they are still alive at that stage but she didn't let on. The thin snake-like bodies are cut into regular chunks or shucked before immersion in water, vinegar and a stock made from nutmeg and lemon juice. The same slimy residue that plaqued my fishing line has the gelatinous properties to bind together the ingredients into a jelly.

I paid the reasonably sounding £3.50 and pocketed the container leaving the premises furtively as though having just completed a dodgy transaction.

It took a couple of hours to persuade myself to sample the eel. It was surprisingly tender and soft, a texture familiar to me from roll mop herrings although a mouthful of fine bones did at first startle. In all, a pleasurable experience and one that I would be happy to repeat on my next visit to that part of the world.