EEL

26th January 2024

Photo Credit: mauribo (Getty Images Signature), CANVA

QUOTATION

Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels

when she put ‘em i’ th’ paste alive.

FOOL: King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

EEL (Common/European Eel: Anguilla anguilla)

The quotation above identifies Eels as a well known food for Cockneys and others. Shakespeare uses ‘Eel skin’ twice as a joking insult about thin bodies and thin arms. Eels appear in numerous recipes, especially those for Lent and fish days, in the 1594 Good Huswife’s Handmaide for the Kitchin, including a Lenten Custard made with Pike or Eel broth, Almonds, Currants, Dates and various spices.

Eels bones and remains of Eel traps/baskets have been found in Britain from at least the Late Bronze site of Must Farm in Cambridgeshire onwards and their are many historical records of Eel fishing in Britain.

Eels hatch from eggs in the Sargasso Sea, an area of floating golden algae (Sargassum) around the Caribbean. They travel as larvae across the Atlantic, arriving in rivers like the Thames as small glass eels, then turn into brown elvers, and grow for several years turning yellow then silver until they can make the journey back to the Sargasso Sea to breed.

Eels were formerly very common in European rivers but they have suffered catastrophic declines since the 1980s and are now classified as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Global Red List. Factors in their decline include barriers to migration, pollution, changing ocean currents. Many organisations in Britain, Europe and around the world are working to conserve Eel populations.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) are working to improve conditions for Eels in the Thames. You can help these efforts by contributing data and by helping to monitor Eel ladders. Find out more here.

More Information

Foods of England: A Good Huswifes Handmaide in the Kitchin 1594

Historic England: River Fisheries and Coastal Fish Weirs

IUCN Global Red List: European Eel

Must Farm Cambridgeshire: Visit Site

Peterborough Archaeology: Must Farm Eel Traps

Sargasso Sea Commission: Visit Site

Zoological Society of London (ZSL): European Eel Conservation