Gudgeon sandwiches

A friend once claimed he took gudgeon sandwiches to school. That was a long time ago and it was pretty unusual even then. Now it seems that nobody eats freshwater fish in England any more, apart from trout and salmon, and that's mostly farmed. But as an occasional angler I was curious. Most old fishing books and cookery books have recipes for river fish, and not just pike. And freshwater fish are eaten in many parts of Europe.

There's a story going round that recent immigrants to England are joining fishing clubs to take expensively stocked carp from club lakes. Immigrants get blamed for everything and I'll bet it's an urban myth, but carp are a delicacy in many countries, from Europe to the far east. I fish in France occasionally and attitudes there are different. Pike and perch are seen as a sort of vermin that take trout and whenever they are caught they are killed. That attitude is nonsense of course, but at least they get eaten.

Anyway, I once caught a carp in France and decided to cook it. I gave it the full treatment with red wine, sweet herbs, garlic, carrots and so on, and it wasn't bad at all. (I have eaten carp in Japan and it was fantastic there).

Another time I caught a chub, which I know used to be eaten in England, though mainly by the poor (see Izaak Walton). Most fishing books say it is inedible, and it is true that it is full of tiny bones. But a big enough fish, upwards of 2lbs, say, is edible with a little care and quite tasty, given the red wine and garlic treatment.

Once when I caught a small chub and it died because the hook was swallowed too deep I felt it would be a shame to waste it (though it would still have provided a meal for a pike). After some thought I realised that it wasn't that different from a herring. So I left it in vinegar for a couple of days, with some peppercorns, a bay leaf and parsley, and other bits and pieces (in the fridge, of course) and it came out not unlike a soused herring. The very fine bones that would be murderous in a cooked fish soften up, and the texture of the flesh improves.

On a trout fishing trip with a neighbour, we caught nothing but perch. I dutifully returned mine and was scorned for putting a predator back into a trout stream. My neighbour took a bag full of perch home. Remembering another neighbour's story, that a perch as big as a hand is good eating, I took one home on an other occasion. I was amazed: it's a very tasty fish, as near to a sea fish in taste as any freshwater fish, with firm white flesh and large bones that are easy to remove. I have since put them on the barbecue, where their thick skins protect them from burning while they cook through. I have also cooked pike, and very good it was too. And of course it appears on many menus, as does Zander, another freshwater fish, which has been introduced to England, but which I don't suppose anyone eats here.

Occasionally in France I have seen bream and tench for sale in a market but I haven't had the courage to eat them yet.

And as for a gudgeon sandwich. Well, first catch your gudgeon.